Jiro screwed his queer little eyes upon the scrawling characters.  The methods of writing in the Far East, being pictorial and inexact, require scrutiny of the context before a given sentence can be correctly interpreted.

The little man made no trouble about it, however.

“They are old chalacters,” he said.  “In Japan we joke a lot.  Evely sign has sevelal meanings.  This can be lead two ways.  It is a plovelb, and says, ‘A new field gives a small clop,’ or ’Human life is but fifty years.’  Where did you see it?”

“On the blade of the Ko-Katana that killed Sir Alan Hume-Frazer,” answered Brett.

And now he experienced a fresh difficulty.  The Japanese face is exceedingly expressive.  When a native of the Island Empire smiles or scowls, exhibits surprise or fear, he apparently does these things with his whole soul.  Such facial plasticity provides far more effective concealment of real emotions than the phlegmatic indifference of the Briton, who, in the words of Emerson, requires “pitchforks or the cry of ‘fire!’” to arouse him.

It is possible to throw an Englishman off his guard by a shrewd thrust; but Mr. Numagawa Jiro was one of those persons whose lineaments would reveal the same amount of pain over a cut finger as a broken leg.

Nevertheless, Brett’s reply did unquestionably make him jump, and even Mrs. Jiro’s bulging features became anxious.

“Is that possible?” said the Japanese.  “It is velly stlange the police gentleman did not tell me about it.”

“He did not know of it until to-day,” explained Brett, “and that is why I am here now.  It is the motto of some important Japanese family, is it not?”

“It is a plovelb,” repeated Jiro, who evidently intended to take thought.

“So I understand, but used in this way it represents a family, a clan?”

“I do not know.”

“What!  A man so interested in his country’s art as to go to an out-of-the-way English provincial town merely to see a small knife, must surely be able to decide such a trivial matter as the use of mottoes on sword blades!”

Mr. Jiro’s excellent knowledge of English seemed to fail him, but his wife took up the defence.

“My husband had more to think about in Ipswich than a small knife, Mr. Brett.”

“Very much more, but it was the knife which brought him to the place.  He carried the major attraction away with him.”

Mrs. Jiro thought this sounded nice.  She turned to her husband: 

“Why don’t you tell the gentleman all you know about it, Nummie?”

The little man looked at her curiously before he spoke to the barrister.

“I have nothing to tell,” he said.  “I told the police all that they asked me.  That was a velly old Ko-Katana, a hundred yeals old.  It was made by a famous altist.  I have told you the meaning of the liting.  That is all I know.”

“Why did you give your name at Ipswich as Okasaki?” demanded Brett.