“I have brought two very dear friends of mine,” said Patterson to all the world, “for pleasure artistic rather than carnal; though perhaps I can safely prophesy that the pleasure of the senses is the end of all true art.  We have come to see the national dance of Japan, the Nagasaki reel, the famous Chonkina.  I myself am familiar with the dance.  On two or three occasions I have performed with credit in these very halls.  But these two gentlemen have come all the way from England on purpose to see the dance.  I therefore request that you will dance it to-night with care and attention, with force of imagination, with a sense of pleasurable anticipation, and with humble respect to the naked truth.”

He spoke with the precise eloquence of intoxication, and as he flopped to the ground again Wigram clapped him on the shoulder with a “Bravo, old man!”

Geoffrey felt very silent and rather sick.

  Chonkina!  Chonkina!

The little women made a show of modesty, hiding their faces behind their long kimono sleeves.

A servant girl pushed open the walls which communicated with the next room, an exact replica of the one in which they were sitting.  An elderly woman in a sea-grey kimono was squatting there silent, rigid and dignified.  For a moment Geoffrey thought that a mistake had been made, that this was another guest disturbed in quiet reflection and about to be justly indignant.

But no, this Roman matron held in her lap the white disc of a samisen, the native banjo, upon which she strummed with a flat white bone.  She was the evening’s orchestra, an old geisha.

The six little butterflies lined up in front of her and began to dance, not our Western dance of free limbs, but an Oriental dance from the hips with posturings of hands and feet.  They sang a harsh faltering song without any apparent relation to the accompaniment played by that austere dame.

  Chonkina!  Chonkina!

The six little figures swayed to and fro.

  Chonkina!  Chonkina!  Hoi!

With a sharp cry the song and dance stopped abruptly.  The six dancers stood rigid with hands held out in different attitudes.  One of them had lost the first round and must pay forfeit.  Off came the broad embroidered sash.  It was thrown aside, and the raucous singing began afresh.

Chonkina!  Chonkina!  Hoi!

The same girl lost again; and amid shrill titterings the gorgeous scarlet kimono fell to the ground.  She was left standing in a pretty blue under-kimono of light silk with a pale pink design of cherry-blossoms starred all over it.

  Chonkina!  Chonkina!