CHAPTER I MY SURPRISE
I am going to tell you something that you must never tell any one. Stupid people wouldn’t believe it, anyway; and there are so many stupid people that I should seem like the greatest fibber in the world. But if you will keep still I will confide in you.
Once on a time, I was in Japan in a city called Takoshima. It rained buckets full. I was thoroughly disgusted, and not being able to walk about the streets, decorated with lanterns and weathercocks, and through the gardens full of flowers, I had to stay shut up in a little room sitting on the floor, for in Japan they don’t use chairs.
I kept yawning like a dog in front of a fire.
Trying to forget how tedious it was I began to poke into all the corners of the room, hoping to discover something with which to amuse myself. After a thorough search, all I found was a box of matches. For lack of anything else to do they might help me to pass the time, as I could place them in all sorts of positions, and make any number of interesting designs.
In the box, however, there were only three, and you know with three matches even a genius can’t make anything but a triangle, the simplest of all the figures in geometry.
After all, I might try to make a little man. I had learned that game long ago when I wore short trousers and went to school, and always had my pockets stuffed full of marbles, pens, peach stones, buttons, twine and other precious things—sometimes even matches.
With patience and a little string I used to tie them together and make arms and legs, and so transform them into a very slim person that seemed to me altogether lovely.
I began to work, and in a quarter of an hour the three matches had become the little man that I remembered; and I can assure you, he still looked to me extremely fine.