Page:Things Japanese (1905).djvu/216

204 Rector.—When was I ever frolicsome? If I ever was, out with it quick! out with it qucikquick [sic]!

Curate.—If I were to tell it, you would be put to shame.

Rector.—I am conscious of nothing that could put me to shame. If any thing there be, out with it quick! out with it quick!

Curate.—Well then, I'll tell it, I will.

Rector.—Out with it quick!

Curate.—Well, then! the other day, pretty little Ichi, who lives outside the temple gate, was here.

Rector.—And what about Ichi, pray!

Curate.—Just listen, please! Don't you call it a frolic to have beckoned to her, and then to have disappeared with her into one of the back rooms?

Rector.—Insolent rascal, inventing things I never did, and bringing shame on your superior! After this, by the God of War with his Bow and Arrows, I shall not let you escape me!

Curate.—For all you are my master, I do not intend to let myself get the worst of it.

Both.—Ah! ah! ah! (Fighting.)

Curate.—Has the old fool learnt a lesson? Oh! oh! I am glad! I am glad! I've beat! I've beat!

Rector.—Deary, deary me! where is he off to, after having put his master in such a plight? Is there nobody there? Catch him! I won't let him escape! I won't let him escape!

 Funerals. Till recently all funerals were in the hands of the Buddhist hierarchy,—even the funerals of Shintō priests themselves: but now the Shintōists are allowed to bury their own dead. The Shintō coffin resembles that used in Europe. The Buddhist coffin is small and square, and the corpse is fitted into it in a squatting posture with the head bent to the knees,—a custom which some derive from the devout habit of sitting rapt in religious meditation, while others discover in it a symbolical representation, in the last earthly scene, of the position of the unborn child in its mother's womb. Further outward and visible signs whereby to distinguish a Buddhist from a Shintō funeral, are, in the former, the bare shaven heads of the Buddhist priests and the dark blue coats of the coffin-bearers; in the latter, the plain white garb of the coffin-bearers, the Shintō priests 