As they walked away from the kosatsu they saw a group engaged in the childish amusement of blowing soap-bubbles. There were three persons in the group, a man and two boys, and the youngsters were as happy as American or English boys would have been under similar circumstances. While the man blew the bubbles, the boys danced around him and endeavored to catch the shining globes. Fred and Frank were much interested in the spectacle, and had it not been for their sense of dignity, and the manifest impropriety of interfering, they would have joined in the sport. The players were poorly clad, and evidently did not belong to the wealthier class; but they were as happy as though they had been princes; in fact, it is very doubtful if princes could have had a quarter as much enjoyment from the chase of soap-bubbles.
Evening was approaching, and the party concluded to defer their sight-seeing until the morrow. They returned to the railway station, and were just in time to catch the last train of the day for Yokohama. There was a hotel at Tokio on the European system, and if they had missed the train, they would have patronized this establishment. The Doctor had spent a week there, and spoke favorably of the Sei-yo-ken, as the hotel is called. It is kept by a Japanese, and all the servants are natives, but they manage to meet very fairly the wants of the strangers that go there. It was some time after the opening of Tokio to foreigners before there was any hotel there, and a visitor was put to great inconvenience. He was compelled to accept the hospitality of his country's representative. As he generally had no personal claims to such hospitality, he was virtually an intruder; and if at all sensitive about forcing himself where he had no business to go, his position could not be otherwise than embarrassing. The American ministers in the early days were often obliged to keep free boarding-houses, and even at the present time they are not entirely exempt from intrusions. Our diplomatic and consular representatives abroad are the victims of a vast amount of polite fraud, and some very impolite frauds in addition. It is a sad thing to say, but nevertheless true, that a disagreeably large proportion of travelling Americans in distant lands make pecuniary raids on the purses of our representatives in the shape of loans, which they never repay, and probably never intend to. Another class manages to sponge its living by quartering at the consular or diplomatic residence, and making itself as much at home as though it owned everything. There are many consuls in Europe and Asia who dread the entrance of a strange countryman into their offices, through the expectation, born of bitter experience, that the introduction is to be followed by an appeal for a loan, which is in reality a gift, and can be ill afforded by the poorly paid representative.
The next day the party returned to Tokio, but, unfortunately for their plans, a heavy rain set in and kept them indoors. Japanese life and manners are so much connected with the open air that a rainy day does not leave much opportunity for a sight-seer among the people. Finding the rain was likely to last an indefinite period, they returned to the hotel at Yokohama. The boys turned their attention to letter-writing, while the Doctor busied himself with preparations for an excursion to Hakone—a summer resort of foreigners in Japan—and possibly an ascent of Fusiyama. The boys greatly wished to climb the famous mountain; and as the Doctor had never made the journey, he was quite desirous of undertaking it, though, perhaps, he was less keen than his young companions, as he knew it could only be accomplished with a great deal of fatigue.
The letters were devoted to descriptions of what the party had seen in their visit to Tokio, and they had a goodly number of comments to make on the manners and customs of the Japanese. Frank declared that he had never seen a more polite people than the Japanese, and then he added that he had never seen any other people outside of his own country, and therefore his judgment might not be worth much. Fred had been greatly impressed with his discovery that the babies of Japan do not cry, and he suggested that the American babies would do well to follow the example of the barbarian children. Then, too, he was much pleased with the respect the children showed for their parents, and he thought the parents were very fond of their children, if he were to judge by the great number of games that were provided for the amusement of the little folks. He described what he had seen in the temple at Asakusa, and in other parts of Tokio, and enclosed a picture of a Japanese father seated with his children, the one in his arms, and the other clinging to his knee, and forming an interesting scene.
FATHER AND CHILDREN.
Frank had made a discovery about the cats of Japan, and carefully recorded it in his letter as follows:
"There are the funniest cats in this country that you ever saw. They have the shortest kind of tails, and a good many of them haven't any tails at all any more than a rabbit. You know we expect every kitten in America to play with her tail, and what can she do when she has no tail to play with? I think that must be the reason why the Japanese cats are so solemn, and why they won't play as our cats do. I have tried to find out how it all happens, but nobody can tell. Doctor Bronson says the kittens are born without tails, and that is all he knows about it. I think they must be a different kind of cat from ours; but, apart from the absence of tails, they don't look any way dissimilar. Somebody says that an American once took one of these tailless cats to San Francisco as a curiosity, and that it would never make friends with any long-tailed cat. It would spit and scratch, and try to bite off the other cat's tail; but one day, when they put it with a cat whose tail had been cut off by a bad boy, it was friendly at once."
Fred wanted ever so much to send home a goldfish with a very wide and beautiful tail. The fish didn't seem to be much unlike a common goldfish, except in the tail, which was triple, and looked like a piece of lace. As it swam around in the water, especially when the sun was shining on the globe, its tail seemed to have nearly as many colors as the rainbow, and both the boys were of opinion that no more beautiful fish was ever seen. But the proposal to send it to America was rather dampened by the statement of the Doctor that the experiment had been tried several times, and only succeeded in a very few instances. Almost all the fish died on the voyage over the Pacific; and even when they lived through that part of the trip, the overland journey from San Francisco to the Atlantic coast generally proved too much for them. The Japanese name for this fish is kin-giyo, and a pair of them may be bought for ten cents. It is said that a thousand dollars were offered for the first one that ever reached New York alive, which is a large advance on the price in Yokohama.