“Yes, but Mr. Fujinami Gennosuke is an old man now, and the times are changing.”

The master laughed.

“Times change,” he said, “but men and women never change.”

“It is true,” argued Ito, “that rich and noble persons no longer frequent the yukwaku (pleasure enclosure).  My friend, Suzuki, has seen the Chief of the Metropolitan Police.  He says that he will not be able to permit Oiran Dochu another year.  He says too that it will soon be forbidden to show the jor[=o] in their windows.  It will be photograph-system for all houses.  It is all a sign of the change.  Therefore, the Fujinami ought not to sink any more capital in the yukwaku.”

“But men will still be men, they will still need a laundry for their spirits.”  Mr. Fujinami used a phrase which in Japan is a common excuse for those who frequent the demi-monde.

“That is true, sensei,” said the counsellor; “but our Japan must take on a show of Western civilisation.  It is the thing called progress.  It is part of Western civilisation that men will become more hypocritical.  These foreigners say our Yoshiwara is a shame; but, in their own cities, immoral women walk in the best streets, and offer themselves to men quite openly.  These virtuous foreigners are worse than we are.  I myself have seen.  They say, ’We have no Yoshiwara system, therefore we are good.’  They pretend not to see like a geisha who squints through a fan.  We Japanese, we now become more hypocritical, because this is necessary law of civilisation.  The two swords of the samurai have gone; but honour and hatred and revenge will never go.  The kanzashi (hair ornaments) of the oiran will go too; but what the oiran lose, the geisha will gain.  Therefore, if I were Fujinami San, I would buy up the geisha, and also perhaps the inbai (unregistered women).”

“But that is a low trade,” objected the Yoshiwara magnate.

“It is very secret; your name need never be spoken.”

“And it is too scattered, too disorganised, it would be impossible to control.”

“I do not think it would be so difficult.  What might be proposed is a geisha trust.”

“But even the Fujinami have not got enough money.”

“Within one month I guarantee to find the right men, with the money and the experience and the influence.”

“Then the business would no longer be the Fujinami only—­”

“It would be as in America, a combine, something on a big scale.  In Japan one is content with such small business.  Indeed, we Japanese are a very small people.”

“In America, perhaps, there is more confidence,” said the elder man; “but in Japan we say, ‘Beware of friends who are not also relatives,’ There is, as you know, the temple of Inari Daimy[=o]jin in Asakusa.  They say that if a man worships at that temple he becomes the owner of his friend’s wealth.  I fear that too many of us Japanese make pilgrimage to that temple after nightfall.”