Page:My Japanese Wife.djvu/167

Rh fire-flies. Aki is lost, and we forget all about him. He will be all right. There are scores of other children straying about, and no one seems to take any notice. Besides, they mostly wear masks, and blow intermittently upon crystal horns, the noise of which reminds me of the irate gobble-gobble of turkeys engaged in a farmyard fracas.

“Cy-reel, is England like this?” Mousmé asks in an excited whisper.

“No,” I am forced to admit, though foreseeing the inevitable rejoinder.

“Then I don’t think I shall like England,” says Mousmé the child.

“We shall see.”

We make our way to the terrace, bordered by tea-houses, now thronged by the beauties and golden youths of Nagasaki and the country round. At every turn we seem to meet some acquaintance of Mousmé’s, who keeps up a continuous series of bows and nods and smiles.