On his arrival, he met with disappointment.  The effusive proprietor informed him that a party of five, “one single lady, and two young married couples, he thought,” had breakfasted there and left immediately with Dr. Weston for Hieizan.  They would not return until night.

“What, pray, is Hieizan?” Percival asked, dimly remembering Mrs. Weston’s outlined plan.

“Very grand mountain,” said the proprietor; “view of Lake Biwa.  Biggest pine-tree in the world.”

The last thing that Percival desired to see was a big pine-tree, but the prospect of sharing the sight of it with Bobby Boynton spurred him to further inquiry.

“But they must come back, mustn’t they?  Perhaps I could meet them halfway?”

“Oh, yes.  They go by kago over mountain; you go by ’rickisha to Otsu, and wait.  Very nice, very easy.  All come home together.  I furnish fine jinrikisha and very good man, Sanno; spik very good English.”

Percival had an early lunch, and, leaving Judson sitting disconsolately among the hand-bags, started for Otsu.  From the first his runner justified his reputation of speaking English; he began by counting up to fifty, looking over his shoulder for approval, and expecting to be prompted when his memory failed.  He received Percival’s peremptory order to be silent with an uncomprehending smile and a glib recitation of the Twenty-third Psalm.  He was an unusually tall coolie, and the jinrikisha-shafts resting in his hands were a foot higher than they ought to be, throwing his passenger at a most awkward angle.  Before Otsu was reached a sudden rainstorm came on, and Percival was made yet more uncomfortable by having the hood of the jinrikisha put up, and a piece of stiff oilcloth tucked about him.

By the time he rattled into the courtyard of the small Japanese inn, he was cramped and cold and very cross.  Even the voluble welcome of the proprietor and the four girls, who received him on their knees, failed to revive his spirits.  It was going to be deuced awkward explaining his sudden appearance to the Weston party.  There might even be jokes at his expense.  He decided to take a room and not make his appearance unless everything seemed propitious.

An animated discussion was in progress between Sanno and the innkeeper, the import of which Sanno explained with much difficulty.  Owing to the autumn festival of the imperial ancestors, the inn was quite full, but hospitality could not he refused to so distinguished a foreign guest.

“Foreign bedstead is not,” concluded Sanno; “foreign food is not; hot bath is.”

“I sha’n’t want a bed, and I sha’n’t want a bath,” said Percival, then, seeing that a diminutive maiden was unloosing his shoes, he added petulantly:  “My boots are quite dry.  Tell her to go away.”

But Sanno was getting his jinrikisha under cover, and Percival had to submit to the gentle, but firm, determination of the nesan.  She was small and demure, but her attitude towards him was that of a nurse towards a refractory child.  She conducted him, with much sliding of screens, through several compartments, to a room at the back of the house that opened out on a tiny balcony overhanging a noisy stream.