Page:My Japanese Wife.djvu/70

56 From my position I can overlook the road which runs away up alongside my boundary fence, higher and higher, till at last it vanishes amid the greenery and the tea-gardens. Down below, the older quarters of the town lie huddled together like a flock of sheep crushing each other in the endeavour to avoid some danger, swarming with people of the poorer class. It is not quite so fine an evening as last night was, and the hill-tops are hidden in the woolly masses of threatening clouds. The twilight is gloomy, and not orange-hued as before, and darkness comes more quickly upon its heels.

I light my treasured briar, and wait as patiently as may be for my friend.

When first I came here, how all my acquaintances used to laugh at the immense bowl of my pipe, which would, I should think, hold nearly ten times as much light-hued tobacco as theirs!