Page:Madame Butterfly; Purple eyes; A gentleman of Japan and a lady; Kito; Glory (1904).djvu/183

 "silent, sulky fellow"—the harshest in theif polite vocabulary. Yet he was courtesy itself in his intercourse with them. If he had only added to his courtesy comradeship! But their hilarity, songs, dances, races, wrestles, went on without him—without so much as a smile. The Japanese face is made and educated to express nothing. Kito, looking always within, could have' taught his fellows something even of this art. As for comradeship—that was impossible.

His foreign fares usually cursed him for his animal-like imperviousness to things human—such, for instance, as laughter. He could n't laugh—though sometimes he piteously tried. They always gave him up after a brief effort, and called him un misérable if they were French or Russian, "poor devil" if they were English or American. But in one thing they were curiously alike: none ever failed to add to the pittance of his tariff the rin which came up with the small coin from their pockets.

Take him for all in all, if you had come to Japan, where meekness is soil of the soil, seeking its completest incarnation, Kito and his 'rikisha (for they were but a single entity) must have satisfied you utterly. His humil-