Promptly, obediently she rested back upon her heels, her two small hands resting flatly on her knees. She turned her face archly, as if inviting inspection, much to the entertainment of the now charmed circle. The apprentice of the House of a Thousand Joys upheld the prestige of her mother's charm. Even the thin, elderly man, with the bright glasses over which he seemed to peer with an evidently critical and appraising air, softened visibly before that mingled look of naïve appeal and glowing youth. The glasses were blinked from the nose, and dangled by their gold string. He approached nearer to the girl, again put on his glasses, and subjected her through them to a searching scrutiny, his trained eye resting longer upon the shining hair of the girl. The glasses blinked off again at the unabashed wide smile of confidence in those extraordinary eyes; he cleared his throat, prepared to deliver an opinion and diagnosis upon the particular species before his glass. Before he could speak, Jerry broke in belligerently.
"First of all, let's get this thing clear. She's not going to be handed back to that blanketty blank baboon. I'm responsible for her, and I'm going to see that she gets a square deal from this time on."
The girl's eyes widened as she looked steadily at the kindling face of the young man, whom she was more than ever assured was a special instrument of the gods. Professor Barrowes cleared his throat noisily again, and holding his glasses in his hand, punctuated and emphasised his remarks:
"Young gentlemen, I suggest that we put the matter in the hands of Mr. Blumenthal, our consul here at Nagasaki. I do not know—I will not express—my opinion of what our rights are in the matter—er as to whether we have in fact broken some law of Japan in—er—thus forcibly bringing the—ah—young lady to our home. I am inclined to think that we are about to experience trouble—considerable trouble I should say—with this man Hirata. If my memory serves me right, I recall hearing or reading somewhere that a master of such a house has certain property right in these—er—young—ah—ladies."
"That may be true," admitted the especial agent of the gods. "Suppose she is owned by this man. I'll bet that Japan is not so dashed mediæval in its laws, that it permits a chimpanzee like that to beat and ill-use even a slave, and anyway, we'll give him all that's coming to him if he tries to take her from us."
"He'll have his hands danged full trying!"
The girl's champion this time was the youthful one of the bone ribbed glasses. Looking at him very gravely, she perceived his amazing youth, despite the wise spectacles that had at first deceived her. There was that about him that made her feel he was very near to her own age, which numbered less than fifteen years. Across the intervening space between them, hazily the girl thought, what a charming playmate the boy of the bone ribbed glasses would make. She would have liked to run through the temple gardens with him, and hide in the cavities of the fantastic rocks, where Japanese children loved to play, and where the wistful eyes of the solitary little apprentice of the House of a Thousand Joys had often longingly and enviously watched them. Her new friend she was to know as "Monty." He had a fine long name with a junior on the end of it also, but it took many years before she knew her friends by other than the appellations assigned to them by each other.
Now the elderly man—perhaps he was the father, thought the girl on the mat—was again speaking in that emphatic tone of authority.
"Now my young friends, we have come to Japan with a view to studying the country and people, and to avail ourselves of such pleasures as the country affords to its tourists, etc., and, I may point out, that it was no part of our programme or itinerary to take upon ourselves the responsibility and burden, I may say, of——"
"Have—a heart!"