FORE:
FORE:Men of various trades were working in the shops at Asakusa, and their way of operating was of much interest to our young friends. A barber was engaged in arranging the hair of a customer; the forehead had been shaven, and the hair at the back of the head was gathered into a knot and thickly plastered, so as to make it stick and remain in place when turned over into a short cue. The customer knelt on the ground in front of a box that contained the tools of the operator's trade, and by his side was a portable furnace for heating water. The whole equipment was of very little value, and the expense of fitting up a fashionable barber's shop in New York would send hundreds of Japanese barbers on their way rejoicing.
FORE:"We found the streets narrow and dirty compared with Japan, or with any city I ever saw in America. The shops are small, and the shopkeepers are not so polite as those of Tokio or other places in Japan. In one shop,[Pg 323] when I told the guide to ask the man to show his goods, they had a long talk in Chinese, and the guide said that the man refused to show anything unless we should agree to buy. Of course we would not agree to this, and we did nothing more than to ask the price of something we could see in a show-case. He wanted about ten times the value of the article; and then we saw why it was he wanted us to agree beforehand to buy what we looked at. Every time we stopped at a shop the people gathered around us, and they were not half so polite as the Japanese under the same circumstances. They made remarks about us, which of course we did not understand; but from the way they laughed when the remarks were made, we could see that they were the reverse of complimentary.I had already tried hard to get something said, but had found myself at every turn entangled in generalities. Now, stammering and gagging I remarked that our experiences of the morning, both in church and out, had in some way combined with an earlier word of his own to me, and given me a valuable thought. "You remember, when I wanted to shoot that Yankee off my horse?"
THREE:
THREE:But, after all, fortune was merciful, and I was gone; the Major had summoned me--his brother had come. I went circuitously and alone. As I started, some fellow writhing on the grass cried, "Charlie Tol--oh, this is better than a tcharade!" and a flash of divination enlightened me. While I went I burned with shame, rage and nervous exhaustion; the name Scott Gholson had gasped in my ear was the name of her in the curtained wagon, and I cursed the day in which I had heard of Charlotte Oliver.
