Page:My Japanese Wife.djvu/185

Rh “Ah, then she will get better, most honourable English Mister,” is the reply. And then, whilst I am explaining matters, the doctor’s yellow fingers, with their wrinkled, dried-parchment skin, are busy compounding something which smells abominably, and in the efficacy of which I feel I have no faith, notwithstanding his reiterated assurance that “the most honourable madame” will speedily recover.

When he has finished mixing the medicine in the little jar-like cup Oka’s wife has brought him, he examines his patient very carefully with a pair of spectacles thrust up on his forehead, holding Mousmé’s hand and counting the pulse-beats, lifting her eyelids and staring into her unseeing eyes, talking all the while in the high-pitched, squeaky tone which reminds me of the old man who sits at the corner of Nisson Street and writes the illiterate mousmés’ love-letters, putting in all sorts