CHAPTER III.

Shopping in jinrikshas.

“I feel very much like a baby in a baby carriage,” observed Miss Helen Campbell as Mr. Campbell almost lifted her into the graceful little two-wheeled vehicle.  “And is that poor soul going to turn into a horse and pull me?” she demanded.

“You aren’t such a heavy load,” replied her cousin.  “I doubt if the S. P. C. A. would get excited over it.  I am only sorry you have to be alone, but I suppose those four inseparables are paired off as usual.  Billie with Nancy and Mary with Elinor.”

“Indeed, I much prefer to be alone,” said Miss Campbell.  “Then I can hold on with both hands in case I am upset backwards.”

“You never will be.  They will treat you like spun glass.  You will take good care of the ladies, Komatsu,” he said to the ’riksha man who, leaning against the garden wall, resembled a bronze figure, brown and muscular.

“Gracious lady of fearing not need,” answered Komatsu with an ingratiating smile as he stepped between the shafts of the ’riksha.

“It is impossible to tell how much English they know and how much they don’t know,” Mr. Campbell confided to his relative in a low voice.  “They never ask twice and they always make some kind of an out at a reply.  But I think, until I can go with you, it is safer for you to go in the ’rikshas.  The common people here aren’t used to motor cars and there are still some fanatics in Japan, you know, who are opposed to every sort of progress and the invasion of foreign customs.”

“Good-by, Papa,” called Billie, “I do wish you were not a working man so that you could go with us.”

“I am sorry I must be a laborer in the vineyards, Miss Wilhelmina,” he answered, “but it’s only that you may ride in a fine carriage and wear a silk robe.”

“Silk robe?” repeated Miss Campbell.  “That’s just what I want.  Komatsu, we wish to go to a silk shop,” she ordered the man-servant, speaking very loud and distinctly as if she were addressing a deaf person.

Komatsu grinned amiably.

“I bring honorable lady to fine shop with quickness.”

The next moment the three vehicles were flying along the road drawn by three tireless individuals, whose good nature, like the widow’s cruse, knew no diminishing.

It would be difficult to find in all the world a more beautiful city than Tokyo at this season of the year.  It is really a city of gardens and everywhere are palms and pines and waving willow trees, magnificent arbors of wisteria not yet in bloom and splendid azalea bushes bursting into masses of white and pink blossoms.  Even the humblest brown cottage has its bit of garden, for the love of flowers is innate in every Japanese nature:  it is a national trait.