your craft.’ The professors did their best to look business-like and unconcerned. Many of them were dressed in gowns which they had hired for the occasion; but fortunately they had no idea how absurd they looked in these old-fashioned and ill-fitting clothes; which saved them from a great deal of embarrassment. Their grimaces and odd turns of speech, both combined with a certain mincing affability which they thought suitable to the occasion—even the strange forms and ceremonies that had to be gone through before any one of them could so much as sit down in his seat—all this was so queer that Yūgiri’s cousins, who had never seen anything of the sort in their lives before, could not refrain from smiling. It was therefore as well that, as actual participators in the ceremony, only the older and steadier among the princes of the Great Hall had been selected. They at least could be relied upon to control their laughter, and all was going smoothly, when it fell to the lot of Tō no Chūjō and his friend Prince Mimbuykō to fill goblets out of the great wine-flagon and present them to their learned guests. Being both of them entirely unversed in these academic rites they paused for a moment, as though not quite certain whether they were really expected to perform this task with their own hands. So at any rate the professors interpreted their hesitation, and at once broke out into indignant expostulations: ‘The whole proceeding is in the highest degree irregular,’[1] they cried. ‘These gentlemen possess no academic qualifications and ought not to be here at all. They must be made to understand that we know nothing of the distinctions and privileges which prevail at Court. They must be told to mend their manners….’ At this some one in the audience ventured to titter, and the professors again expostu-
- ↑ The professors speak in a mixture of antiquated Japanese and classical Chinese the effect of which I do not attempt to reproduce.
