ONE:"Well, we saw so many things that I couldn't begin to guess in half an hour. What was it?"This, though the last of Mrs Fysons misdeeds, was not the first, and Mrs Keeling almost forgot the duty of thankfulness for blessings when she remembered that dreadful occasion. Shortly after Norahs final appearance in the evening, Mrs Fyson had called, and under the pretext of a digestion-visit after her dinner had hissed out a series of impertinent questions as to how it had all ended. Fool though she might be, Mrs Keeling was not of that peculiarly hopeless sort that confides domestic difficulties to the ears of gossips, and had with some appearance of astonishment merely said that she and Miss Propert had had a very pleasant chat while Mr Keeling was telephoning for a cab to take Miss Propert home. On which Mrs Fyson had looked exactly like a ferret and said, Did he bring her into your drawing-room? That was very clever!{179}
TWO:Miss Harper came in, and Charlotte, taking her hand without a glance, told the Captain's hard request under her voice. Miss Harper, too, in her turn, gave a start of pain, but when the dying eyes and smile turned pleadingly to her she said, "Why, if you can, Charlotte, dear, but oh! how can you?""drop back into the ranks," said Quinn to him. "Smith, ride on to Lieutenant Ferry. Corporal,"--to a man near him--"you know the way so well, go with him."
ONE:Doctor Bronson and our young friends went from Yokohama to the capital by the railway, and found the ride a pleasant one of about an hour's duration. They found that the conductors, ticket-sellers, brake-men, and all others with whom they came in contact were Japanese. For some time after the line was opened the management was in the hands of foreigners; but by degrees they were removed, and the Japanese took charge of the business, for which they had paid a liberal price. They have shown themselves fully competent to manage it, and the new system of travel is quite popular with the people. Three kinds of carriages are run on most of the trains; the first class is patronized by the high officials and the foreigners who have plenty of money; the second by the middle-class nativesofficial and otherwiseand foreigners whose purses are not plethorie; and the third class by the peasantry, and common people generally. Frank observed that there were few passengers in the first-class carriages, more in the second, and that the third class attracted a crowd,[Pg 102] and was evidently popular. The Doctor told him that the railway had been well patronized since the day it was first opened, and that the facilities of steam locomotion have not been confined to the eastern end of the empire. The experiment on the shores of Yeddo Bay proved so satisfactory that a line has since been opened from Kobe to Osaka and Kioto, in the Westa distance of a little more than fifty miles. The people take to it as kindly as did those of the East, and the third-class carriages are generally well filled.[Pg 28]
TWO:"We think we want to write home now, Doctor," said Frank, "and wish to know if you approve of our doing so to-day."
ONE:"'TOP-SIDE GALAH!"Oh dear, it is trying. It really is most dreadfully trying"
TWO:Mary said that when she was a child, ten cherries were exchanged among her schoolmates for one apple, two apples for one pear, and two pears for one orange. One day she took some oranges to school intending to exchange them for cherries, of which she was very fond; she left them in Katie Smith's desk, but Katie was hungry and ate one of the oranges at recess."No, it ain't too stinkin' polite."
