Page:Eliza Scidmore--Jinrikisha days in Japan.djvu/80

 in thick, shaggy loops on the under side, not cut away in any economical fashion, these are yesso nishikis, the choicest of all Japanese stuffs, and valued from sixty to one hundred and twenty dollars for the single obi length.

The Nakadori is a half-mile-long street of curio and second-hand shops, which just before the New Year contain their best bargains, and no one can hold to the safety of his jinrikisha through that straight and narrow path, beset by every temptation of old porcelains, lacquer, and embroideries. Peddlers will gather from these shops and carry packs twice their own size, to spread their contents out in the room of a customer. Their wares are so tempting and cheap that the beholder cannot resist them, after a reformation of prices, and that peddler who comes twice has marked his victim for his own. On certain days of the week a rag fair is held on the Yanagiwara. Vendors in rows half a mile long sit under the willow-trees on the canal bank, with neat piles of old clothing, scraps of cloth, and ornaments for sale. Between Shiba and the railway station is a rag alley, a Petticoat Lane of old clothing, but most of it is foreign and unpicturesque, even in the flying glimpses to be caught from a jinrikisha.

In curio-hunting the experienced buyer invariably replies takai, “too much,” to whatever price the dealer names. If intent on the bargain he may add takusan takai, “altogether too much.” Osoroshi takai, or tokomoni takai, “inexpressibly, unspeakably dear,” sometimes serves to abate the price by reason of the dealer’s amazement at hearing those classic and grandiloquent words brought down to common usage.

Once I visited the most charming of old-clothes shops, one where theatrical wardrobes were kept; but Sanjiro could not, or would not remember it, and I never returned. The shopmen were sober and serious automata, whose countenances were stolid and imperturbable, and one might as well have bargained with the high-priest 64