Morning journal and courier., 1891-02-02
JAPANESE VILLAGE INN.
Where the Unconscious Native Sreed-
 ing Made one Feel a Boor.

M one Feet n BOOT.
 [Percival Lowell in the Atlantic.l
 We halted for the night at a fishing will lage called No;two lines of houses hugging the mountain side, and a single line of boats drawn up, ,stern on, upon the strand; the day and night domiciles of the amphi- bious strip of humanity, in domestic tiff, turning their back to one another, a stones throw apart As our kuryma men knew the place while we do not, we let them choose the inn. They pulled up at what caused me shudder. If this was the best inn, what must the worse be like, I thought. However, bowed my head to fate in the form of a rafter lintel, and passed in. A dim light, which came in part from hole in the floor, and in part from an ineffective lamp, revealed lofty, grotto-like interior Over the hole hung a sort of witches caldron, swung by & set of iron bars from the shadowy for of soot- begrimmed rafter. Our entrance caused 8 stir, out of which one of the gnomes came forward, lowing to the ground. When he had lifted himself enough to be seen, he turned out quite human He instantly hustled to fetch another light, and started to lead the strangers across the usual slip pery sill and up the nearly perpendicular stairs. Why was not perpethally falling down these same stairsways, or sliding gracefully or otherwise of the corridors in heap, will always be mystery to me. Yet, with the unimportant exception of sitting down occasionally to put on my boots, somewhat harder than meant, I re- member few such mishaps. It was not the surface that was unwilling; for the con stant scuffle of stocking feet has given the passageways polish mahogany might envy.
 The man proved anything but inhuman, and very much mine host. How courte- ous he was, and in what pleased mind with the world even its whims of weather, his kind attentions put me! He really did so little, too. Beside numberless bows and profuse politeness, he simply laid a small and very thin quilt upon the mats for me to sit on and put feeble brazier by my side. So far as mere comfort went, the first act savored largely of supererogation, as the mats were already exquisitely clean, and the second of insufficiency, since the brazier served only to point the cold it was l powerless to remove But the manner of the doing so charmed the mind that it almost persuaded the grumbling body of con- tent.
 As mine host bowed herself out, a maid bowed herself in, with tray of tea and su- gar plums, and grace that beggared des- scription.
 "You are welcome" she said, as she sank to her knees and bowed her pretty head till it nearly touched the mats; and the voice was but a thought too human for heaven, so unconsciously was it the better part of a caress.
 sswould you deizn to take some teal Truly you must be tired;;" and, pouring out a cup, she placed it beside me as it might have been some beautiful rite, and then withdrew, leaving me, beside the tea, the perfume of presence, the sense that something exquisite had come and gone.
 sat there thinking of her in the ab- stract, and wondering how many maids outside Japan were dowried with like grace and the like voice. With such a one for a cupbearer. could have continued to sin tea. thought, for the rest of my natural, or, alas, unnatural existence.
 There I stayed, squattipg on my feet on the mats, admiring the mimic volcano ir the orthodox artistic way the charcoal wal arranged to represent, and trying my besi i, to warm myself over the idea. But tn. , idea proved almost as cold comfort as tn, , brazier itself. The higher esthetic part O } me was in paradise, and the bodily hal 3 somewhere on the chilly confines of oute space. The spot would no doubt hay proved wholly heaven to that witty indi 3 yidual who was so anxious to exchange tn
 necessities ot life for certainty of It's Iux