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 had other engagements, as we shall see) Kito could be found at the railway-station aforesaid. At the sacred groves of Shiba was always "otherwise engaged." To the former place he came only after passing a number of profitless days at the latter. If you asked him why he did not seek a more busy center—the Castle, where the patronage of officialdom was to be had, the great temple of Asakusa, where all the humbler and merrier people were, the improvident, with holiday purses in their sleeves—he would hang his head in confusion; he would not answer. To answer would be to involve his history, and he would not presume to your very face to the possession of such an absurd thing. To press him would be unwise; for then he would slink away, and for some days you would not find him at Shiba, or the station in the Shimbashi-dori, or anywhere. And, believe me, you would miss him.

Perhaps you would think of it occasionally. The railway-station you would understand in one word—money. But Shiba, the wondrous, the beautiful—no money was there, nor anything but silence and awe. Grim and ancient vaults of cryptomeria,