Page:My Japanese Wife.djvu/105

Rh its ink-stained, paper-panelled walls, on which were pasted or fixed with quaint-headed pins the steamship bills and those of several of the theatre tea-houses, would collapse forthwith with no more warning than the crack of its slight, dry timbers.

The parcel was ready.

Mr. Kara was all smiles. He was a little, short man with extremely beady eyes, quick movements, and a yellow skin deeply pitted by small-pox.

“It is very big to-day!” he exclaimed in Japanese, referring to the package. “Very much larger; half a yen more, please, most honourable gentleman,” as I put down the usual amount.

The smiles were explained; and there was no doubt some truth, I thought, in what the little chief-clerk at the bank, who is so anxiously cultivating a beard, said, namely, “That most excellent friend, Kara, is in great much hurry to get much rich man.”