Evidently the eye was out of order. I tried argument.
“Don’t you think I need a collar?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t you think this one would fit this shirt?”
“Yes.”
“I renew my offer.”
He sternly put the box away.
So I said, “If I must face my friends in Asheville without this necessary ornament, you shall blush. I have done my duty, and refuse to blush.”
I looked up a scholar from Yale, Yutaka Minakuchi, friend of old friends, student of philosophy, in which he instructed me much, first lending me a collar. He became my host in Asheville. It needs no words of mine to enhance the fame of Japanese hospitality....
And I had a friend in a distant place, whom, for fancy’s sake, we will call the Caliph Haroun-al-Raschid. Let him remain a mystery. We will reveal this much. Had he known the truth, he would have sent Greek slaves riding on elephants, laden with changes of raiment. He discerned, at least, that I was in a barbarous land, for at length a long package containing a sword arrived from the court of the Caliph (to speak in parables). I exchanged the weapon at a pawnshop for money, all in one bill—money—against which I had so many times sworn eternal warfare, which had been my hoodoo in the past, and was destined to be again. But this time, such are the whims of fate, the little while it was with me it brought me only good.