On the morning that the boat was to sail from Yokohama we were up as soon as the sun first came through the bamboo shades. We exchanged presents with everyone in the inn and then walked away to the station, and everyone from the aristocratic mistress to the messenger boy stood waving to us as long as we could turn back to see them. Our packages and presents half filled the car. Hori had had a telegram to hurry home. The train was a through express to Kyoto and we said “sayonara” to him from the Yokohama platform.
We went to the bank and I exchanged my receipt for the envelope which held the money for my steamer ticket. In our treasury was left one last Japanese note which we had been saving as a margin. We now thought it was safely ours to spend as we might choose. We went to find some very particular incense and some very particular tea which a Japanese acquaintance had discovered and had given us the address of. We plunged almost to the limit of the note.
“Haven’t you heard that your boat has been held up forty-eight hours in Kobe?” asked the steamship agent.
We had heard no such news, but we were interested. To be able to have, when one might wish to make the choice, the gift of forty-eight hours in Japan would be one sort of a blessing. At that particular moment the prospect had complications. Until that instant our system of finance had been the pride of our hearts. We had calculated so admirably that we had retained just one yen for porters’ fees at the dock.
O-Owre-san had his return ticket. “Can’t I pay for my ticket in part by cheque?” I asked.
After consultation in the inner office the agent returned and announced, “No, that isn’t done.”
The agent and his advisers thought that if I should happen to fall overboard there might be a legal complication with my estate—if I happened to have an estate.
“Your records show,” I argued, “that my friend has crossed on your line three times. Discounting any other substantiality, at least that proves that one of us has had practice in not tumbling overside.”
Evidently my logic was at fault. From the dubious looks that came across the desk I judged that the agent was thinking that such fly-like pertinacity of sticking aboard a vessel was suspicious and unnatural in a passenger.