fathers, only fifty years ago, wore two swords in place of the gold watch of to-day, and ate rice gruel in place of beef and lobster. Oh, what a change! And then I questioned again how true Japan could be related with the Western luxuries; I am sure that real Japan would do very well without Chamberlain’s single eyeglass and Turkish cigarette. My mind, which suddenly hated and loathed our modern life, tacitly declined to take the asparagus when they were passed round, simply from the reason of their being of foreign origin, and tried to live (bless my soul) on the very thought of the fourteenth of December. What about that fourteenth of December? Why, it was on that night, that is to say, this very night some two hundred fifty years ago, that the now world-famous forty-seven ronins headed by Kuranosuke Oishi, kicked the silence and snow with their determined feet of loyalty, and rushed into their enemy’s house. Yes, it is said that it snowed terribly that night, although to-night only the wind blows without.
My mind took me back straight to my
