“No come,” said Sanno, cheerfully, from the step where he was keeping watch.  “Tea?”

Without waiting for an answer, he clapped his hands, calling, “O Cha!”

Another small maiden in a cherry-blossom kimono, carrying a brazier full of live coals, trotted around the corner and conducted Percival back to his apartment.  She proved even more irritating than the first one, for during the tea-making she stopped many times to examine his cuff-links, wrist-watch, and ring, making purring exclamations of delight over each discovery.  When he used his monocle she tried it also, and when he took out his cigarette-case, she must examine every detail and help herself to a cigarette into the bargain.  Percival was acutely bored.  He regarded her as a persistent fly that refused to be brushed away.  He sat with his back against the paper screen, his stockinged feet rigidly extended, drinking his tea as solemnly as if he had been in the most formal drawing-room of Grosvenor Square.

The rainy afternoon closed in to twilight, and still the Weston party did not come.  Percival’s impatience gave place to anger, but he doggedly waited.

“Could they have gone back another way?” he demanded of Sanno.

“Way?” repeated Sanno.

Percival made a drawing on paper and tried to convey his meaning, but it was useless.

“’Merican game?” asked Sanno, grinning.

At last, in desperation, Percival decided to return.

“Yaami Hotel, Kioto,” he directed.

“Very sorry,” said Sanno.  “No come Kioto to-night.  Big rain.  Bridge him very bad.  Jinrikisha upset, maybe.”

Percival declared this to be nonsense; he insisted that he would start immediately.  But as Sanno refused to bring out the jinrikisha, it was not possible to carry out his intention.  Then the Honorable Percival, who was not used to being crossed, lost his temper, and the entire household came out to see him do it.  Sanno and the proprietor watched him with bland and smiling faces, and the girls tucked their heads behind their sleeves and laughed immoderately at his scowls and vehement gestures.

Seeing that he was gaining nothing by argument, he stalked sullenly back to his room, where active preparations were in progress for dinner.  The brazier which had been used for the tea still stood in the middle of the floor, and all around it were porcelain bowls and lacquer trays, and a wooden bucket full of steaming rice.

He took refuge on the two-foot balcony and gazed gloomily on the sprawling stream below.  The Westons were probably back in Kioto by this time, and would be off again in the morning before he could possibly get there.  What headway might not that presumptuous Andy Black make with Bobby Boynton in forty-eight uninterrupted hours!

His tragic reflections were interrupted by the announcement that dinner was served.  Seated on the floor before a twelve-inch table, with disgust written on every feature, he drank fish-soup out of a bowl, and tasted dish after dish as it was borne in and respectfully placed before him.