And have you met my Friend Lily Macpherson in Glasgow? How Pretty we thought her!
"Pretty, Grandmamma! Why, she's as Fat as can be, and red-faced, and no Teeth!" "Ah well! Forty Years do change a Girl!"
JAP THE GIANT-KILLER.
(Fragment of a Tale of New Japan as told around a Fire-Brazier in Dai Nippon.)
Once upon a time in the Happy Dragon-fly shaped Land of the Rising Sun there lived a little hero named Jap. Small he was, but valiant as Také-no-uchi-no-sukuné himself of the long life and many-syllabled name. He was a dead hand at dragon slaying, and had killed more tigers than Hadésu. He could exorcise Oni like one o'clock, these demons or imps having an exceeding bad time of it when Jap was, as he would term it, "on the job." In fact, his exploits were the favourite topic of talk when young and old gathered around the hibachi, or fire-braziers, to list to tales of heroism, filial piety, and Pro-Gress. Pro-Gress was the name of the great new goddess of whom Jap was a votary. From her he had received the gift of a new "sword of sharpness," which would not only, like the gift of the triple-headed Cornish giant, "cut through anything," but would make all enemies cut like anything.
Little Jap, having acquired this wonderful sword, compared with which that which Nitta threw into the sea was a mere oyster-knife, was naturally desirous of using it. He kept it as sharp as that of the great demon-queller Shō-ki; but the demons he quelled with it were the great obstructive ogres known as Kon-serva-tism, Fogi-ism and Pre-ju-dice. Jap gave those antiquated bogies beans. The Tengus and Shō-jos had a bad time of it, you bet, and the "bag" of Dragons, or Tatsus, Jap could show after one of his regular "battues" was a caution to Saurians, I can assure you! He had a collection of Tatsu-teeth that would have aroused the envy of Cadmus, and given Jason a high-toned job. As to that terrible wild-fowl, the Ho-ho bird, with "the head of a pheasant, the beak of a swallow, the neck of a tortoise, and the outward semblance of a dragon," Jap, with his "gun of swiftness" (another gift of his favourite goddess) knocked the Ho-hos over right and left, as though they were really pheasants in a swell British preserve; and it was commonly said that when Jap had a day among the Ho-hos, there was a glut in the Toyoakitsu poultry market for a fortnight after.
But Jap, in time, grew tired of the common or cherry-garden Ho-ho, and aweary of such small sport as mere dragons and demons could furnish. He yearned like an Anglo-Indian Shikari for big game!
Now there was an ugly, but enormous giant, fierce-looking as Kaminari, the Thunder-god, old as Urashima, the Kami-no-kuni Rip Van Winkle, strong as Asaina Saburō, the Dai Nippon Hercules, big as Fusi-yama, "the matchless mountain," rich as the Treasure Ship, laden with Ta-kara-mono (or "Precious Things"), stubborn, stolid, and unprogressive as Kamé, the hairy-tailed tortoise, himself. This tremendous Tartar-Mongolian Blunderbore had a number of fine names, of flowery flavour and Celestial swaggersomeness, but we will call him Jon-ni, for short.