gate towards Sengakuji Temple, where their lord was buried. By the way, Sengakuji Temple is only a quarter of a mile from here where we are dining in Western fashion, The rice gruel and the ronins with the hearts of Bushido and simplicity. Oh, how they fit one another! Nobody, I am sure, would believe if he were told that the ronins accepted with many thanks Prince Sendai’s treat, suppose, of oyster patties or soft-shell crabs, What an effeminacy in the Western dish!
Now, struggling with a rather tough roast beef (look at the Yorkshire pudding, a side dish offered at our President’s suggestion, to please or amuse some of us who had sad experience at cheap English boarding houses) my mind did not hover round the table, but was outside in the street hastening, perhaps, towards Ryogoku Bridge upon the heap of snow now ceased to fall. Thanks for the magic of my imagination! My mind’s eyes saw, with such a crowd here, the forty-seven loyalists, after the heroism of the night, marching by in ranks under the bright morning sun-
