As it was chilly in the room I returned to the hot tub to wait. There I remained for some minutes. Then it occurred to me that, understanding my desire for privacy in the bath, the nesan might be waiting outside with my towel, so I got out again with the intention of looking into the hall.
Just as I emerged, however, the door opened and in she came.
"Scat!" I cried. Whereupon she handed me two towels and fled.
It was well that she did bring two, for the native towel consists of a strip of thin cotton cloth hardly larger than a table napkin. The Japanese do not pretend to dry themselves thoroughly with these towels, but, as I have elsewhere mentioned, wring them out in hot water and use them as a mop, after which they go out and let the air finish the work.
I dried myself as best I could, slipped into the cotton kimono, and returned to the main building of the inn.
In the corridor I encountered my friend the linguist.
"I want to take a photograph of that bathtub," I told him.
"It won't explain itself in a photograph," he returned, "unless there's somebody in it."
I knew what he meant. An American or European, accustomed to the style of bathtub that stands upon the floor, would naturally assume from a picture of this one that it was similarly set. But that was not so. It extended perhaps two feet below the level of the floor; there was a step half-way down the inside to aid one in getting in or out; it was so deep that a short person standing in it would be immersed almost to the shoulders.
"You get in it, then, will you?"