Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 5.djvu/259

 put. A man having purchased a quantity of vegetables, hired a cart for their transport. Needing to make a diversion from the direct route homeward, he bade the carter wait at a certain place. The carter seized the opportunity to abscond with the vegetables. When their owner discovered his loss, he repaired to the house of a diviner, obtained information as to the whereabouts of the thief, and hastening off, apprehended him in the act of selling the vegetables. Another story of contemporary doings shows the adroitness of the diviners in accounting for their failures. A person in good circumstances learned from a horoscopist the exact date of his death. He regulated his affairs accordingly, spent his money lavishly, and having procured a coffin and paid his funeral expenses, lay down to await the supreme moment. It came and passed uneventfully. He therefore proceeded to upbraid the diviner. The latter listened calmly to his reproaches, and finally asked: "May I inquire whether you devoted any of your fortune to charitable objects?" "Certainly," replied the other. "Believing that my opportunities of spending money were brief, I gave away considerable sums in that way." "Just so," said the diviner. "But you failed to observe that benevolent deeds establish a claim upon heaven's protection, and that they would surely be rewarded by the lengthening of your life."

Prominence has here been given to modes of divination which may still be classed among the