“That girl did!” said that girl’s father with one of the grimmest of smiles, and seized the first opportunity to change the topic, by taking down from rose-wood book case something heavy looking in a damask silk bag. He informed us that the bag contained an ink-stone, that once belonged to Rai Sanyo, as one of desk stationeries most treasured by that famous poet-historian and scholar-calligrapher of generations ago. This naturally led to a critical discussion of autographs of Shunsui, Kyohei, Sanyo, Sorai, etc. The ink-stone brought to view at last drew forth admiration from the priest, who was infatuated with the “eyes” and the irridescent colour of the stone. It went without saying that the ink-stone was originally imported from China.
“A stone like this must be rare even in China, Shiota-san?”
“Yes.”
“I should like to have one like this. May I ask you to get me one, Kyuichi-san?” ventured the abbot.
“He, he, he, I might be killed before I found one,” retorted the youth.
“Hoi, I am forgetting, it is no time to talk of getting an ink-stone and things of that kind. By-the-by, when do you start?”
“I leave here in a few days, Osho-sama.”
“You should go down to Yoshida, to see him off, old man.”
“I am getting on in years and ordinarily I should excuse myself. But this time we may part never to meet again, and I am resolved to go down to see him off.”
“No, uncle, you must not take trouble to go down to Yoshida for me.”