Page:Madame Butterfly; Purple eyes; A gentleman of Japan and a lady; Kito; Glory (1904).djvu/182

 stork. How could he run all day? Why, he had stouter legs and a stouter heart then. You can measure, if you please, the decline of his hopes, the loss of his joy, very accurately by inspecting him and his 'rikisha, and remembering what I have told you, shall tell you. Now, as you chose him, perhaps you perceived that there were holes in the mongrel-tinted hood; the brazen bravery had taken on the oxid of many evil years; the lacquer had been wounded by countless shocks and had been healed by artless repairs.

In short, both Kito and his vehicle had fallen into a gaunt and unfriended old age, not of years, but of circumstances—circumstances which you somehow felt, but could not guess. Both had the appearance of having all to do that was possible in keeping body and soul together. For things in Japan have souls also.

I have spoken of Kito's brethren. Yet, in a sense other than professional, he had none. And even his professional attachments were tenuous in the extreme. So that those who lived by the same business, and whose companionship he could not entirely evade, had finally found a name for him which meant