“It would be an unpardonable breach of etiquette,” he called over his shoulder.  Presently he turned back and added, “You are not to use that infernal machine for my party.  The Nesan provided ’rikshas for all guests.”

“But that’s just an additional expense to you, Buxton,” cried Mr. Campbell.

“I know it perfectly well and I so suggested to my elder sister, but she didn’t seem to understand, and I decided I would rather hire a gross of ’rikshas than try and make her.  So you may expect three of ’em to-morrow at a quarter past two.  The performance begins at three.”

“Dear old ‘Comet,’ he’s always getting slighted nowadays,” remarked Billie.  “He never gets to go anywhere.”

“He’s probably glad enough to sit in his cell and meditate on the mutability of human events,” answered Mr. Buxton, and this time he really did go.

It happened therefore that the “Comet” was once more left in humiliating retirement while his young mistresses rode off in jinrikshas which appeared at the door exactly at the hour mentioned by the host of the afternoon.  Indeed the motor car had good reason to be a disgruntled machine.  He never did seem to be a part of the Japanese landscape like the graceful ’riksha.  As a matter of fact he was a blot on the scene and entirely out of place against a background of an ancient temple or a group of picturesque individuals in clothes more brilliant in hue than his own boyhood coat.

Converging from various points in Tokyo but all timed to meet at the theater door exactly at five minutes to three, came the other guests of the party in ’rikshas provided by the Nesan.  Mme. Fontaine was one of these.

“What a picture she is,” exclaimed Nancy, noticing at once the widow’s beautiful costume of embroidered pongee over which she wore a kimono-shaped mantle of the same embroidered silk, the sleeves of which covered her arms and hands completely.

Nodding and smiling at the girls brightly, she followed Miss Campbell into the theater where they were met by the plump, hospitable little Nesan, who prostrated herself before each guest and removed shoes at the same time.

Miss Campbell groaned.

“Oh, dear,” she complained.  “Even at the theater!  I shall never get accustomed to walking flat-footed.  I shall be wearing bifurcated stockings next, I suppose.”

“Etiquette, Madam, etiquette,” said Mr. Buxton.  “You must do as the Romans do, remember, or else be thought extremely rude.”

But there was no time for argument and the party hastily distributed themselves in the two boxes.  Yoritomo Ito kept close beside Nancy while Nicholas Grimm and Reggie Carlton sat tailor fashion in the back of the box.  The theater was a strange place to the Western eye.  There was not a chair in the entire house and Mr. Buxton chuckled aloud over Miss Campbell’s complaints when she was obliged to sit on a mat on