Page:My Japanese Wife.djvu/162

148 presence of the top-bat or “bowler” above their amiable though unbeautiful faces, and the occasional presence of trousers beneath their skirt-like robes.

Alas! just as we near the temple, the pressure of the throng drives us into the proximity of my mother-in-law, and little Aki, who is carrying high above his queer shaven head, with its one tuft of hair or rather fringe—which is like nothing so much as the traditional chimney-sweep’s circular broom—a lantern, like the banner in “Excelsior,” “with a strange device”—a most quaintly hideous imp.

Mother-in-law is too busy protecting one of my “handsome presents,” a ruby-coloured silken obi, from contamination with the crowd, to notice us. But I quickly perceive that Aki’s narrow slots of eyes have spied us out, for the imp-like lantern sways violently upon its stick as he pushes his way through the dense crowd towards us.