There is only one effectual way of dealing with things one does not want to do—­make past history of them as fast as possible.  Very soon after entering the garden I asked Mr. Chalmers, who was mildly interested in the beauties before him, to sit down with me.  Without further dallying, I went straight to the point of the interview.  I told him I had heard him make the appointment with Zura the night before and he seemed to have forgotten to mention the matter to me, though I was close by.  For a time at least I was responsible for Zura, and I thought it best to call his attention to a few facts which could not be overlooked.

“I wonder, Mr. Chalmers, if you realize that in this country it is impossible for a boy and a girl to associate together alone.  It is barely permissible for you to see her in the company of others.  Already your attentions have caused Zura to be talked about and there is very serious trouble with her grandfather.  Further than that, the excursion you are planning for to-night is not only improper in any country, but it means actual disgrace here.”

“It does?  Well, I’ll be hanged!  Can’t take a girl out and give her a good time!  I knew these Japs were fools, but their laws are plain rot.”

“Possibly, from your standpoint, Mr. Chalmers; but you see these laws and customs were in good working order in Japan long before Columbus had a grandfather.  They can’t be changed on the spur of the moment.”

“That’s all right,” he responded hotly.  “What you can’t change you can sometimes break; I’m good at that kind of game.”

Something in the boy’s resentful face said that I was an impudent old meddler, an officious interloper.  It made my voice as sharp as pins.  “Very well, young man,” I said, “there will be just one time in your life’s history when you have encountered both an old law and an old woman that you will neither break nor change.  Your attentions to Zura Wingate have got to be stopped and at once.”

“Stopped!” he retorted.  “Who’s going to make me?  I come from a free country where every fellow is his own boss.  I’ll do as I please.  What do I care about the laws of these little brown monkeys!  Where would they be anyhow if it wasn’t for America?  Didn’t we yank ’em out of their hermits’ nest and make them play the game whether they wanted to or not?  They had better lay low!  Don’t they know there are ninety millions of us?  Why, with one hand tied behind we could lick the Rising Sun clean off their little old flag!”

If it ever happened, I wondered about what point in the battle I could locate Mr. Pinkey Chalmers.  The more he talked, the less I was sure of my pet belief in the divine right of the individual.  Then my heart jumped; I saw Page Hanaford coming.

“The maid was unable to find the book I came for.  She directed me here.  Do I interrupt?” he asked on reaching us, bowing slightly and looking inquiringly from my frowning face to Pinkey Chalmers’s wrathful one.