The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1900-08-04

he whole story e
.'All right" said she, II will But you
needn't be anxious about me. And by the
time you get back l shall be able to I
speak Japanese beautifully"
When I was a lad at school there were
three or four excellent bathing places in
aicated by the authorities; one in shall
lew back-water for the smaller boys, and
other more extensive reaches for those
who had proved their ability to take care
of themselves But there We're, i remem-
ber not a few among us who used to
sneak away to muddy little bit of rv-
er where there We're no diving boards and
no conveniences of any sort, because we
thought that swimming ceased to be a
pastime as soon as it was recognized and
as part of our education. And /
it was not, perhaps, without some trace |
of our school-boy perversity that Frank |
Scarlet and l set out for a months |
shooting in the northern part of the |
main island of Japan. Foreigners are not
permitted to shoot over land more than
ten miles from a treaty port, and it was
only after chivvying the whole staff of
the British Legation for a week that we
succeeded in obtaining special permits
sion from the government, and even then
we each had to keep native policeman
at our heels to explain to the country
people that we were exalted beings, ex-
Scarlet, who is keen sportsman and
has excellent shooting of his own in Eng
land, would l knew, be Disguised, but
his obstinacy carried everything before
it, He wanted to do" Japan, and it was
impossible for him to believe that he
could see any new country without hav-
ing a gun under his arm. We got a few
deer, one lean and miserable boar, and
very fair bags of duck and green pleas
ant but we walked ri for every head of
game we saw. And it is an extraordinary
fact that all the geographers and all
the makers of dictionaries and guide
books are profoundly incapable of trans
lating any sort of foreign measure into
English. These wisacres tell you that a
Japanese ri is two miles and half in a
fiat country and three miles and a half
in the hills, and expect you to be attend
ell by a surveying expedition in order
that you may ascertain with precision
whether your mornings walk lies over
country hilly enough to be measured by
a long ri or fiat enough to be measured
by short ri. Scarlet and / ultimately
hit upon the expedient of counting every
ri five miles and then dividing each ri
into ten whistling distances, for the dogs
we had borrowed in Yokohama were al
ways precisely half a mile away from us.
1t was all very ridiculous as far as the
shooting went but / killed time well
Japan before, and the agonies he suffered
in the native inns were to me vastly en-
PERTAINING.
When we returned to Yokohama / took
him to see Mrs. Potwin. 1t seemed to me
that she was the nearest approach to any
thing genuinely Japanese which he could
be expected to appreciate, and before hi
: had known her a week it was plainly t.
be seen that he did appreciate her.
a things m
life, but l have never seen anything Sc
ridiculous as the wooing of Mrs. Ysonds
Potwin, American uIvorcee and Japanes,
fiancee, by Sir Francis Scarlet. At the
end of fortnight he put a stop to my
chatting him, telling me that he mean
to marry Mrs Potwin if Mrs. Potwii
would marry him, and that he hoped
would have the good taste If ] had an!
comments to make to make them else
where than in his presence. He was oil,
> enough to take care of himself, or. a
: any rate, of such an age that he ought 4
have been able to take care of himself
but / could not help feeling that If / hat
not taken him to see her he would neve
: have met her, and that l was in some de
= gree responsible for his preposterous con
4 duct. We came from the same county
+ his people had always been great friend
e of my people; and I had known, eve
: since we had been at school together, tina
d himself to the groove in which his lat
f lamented father had set INN running h
o did very well. He had plenty of money
and did not throw it away. His shootin
t in Norfolk cost him good deal, but
: was very good shooting. He always ha
t two or three horses in training, and the
e won him nearly enough to pay for thei
: keep. He was by no means the sort c
q man whom card-sharper would have st
# lected as a likely victim. But the momer
e he lost sight of his customary socit
y landmarks he was as helpless as a chill
], astray on moor. There was no reaso
II that he should marry for some years
come, and when the time came for hi
< to marry he ought to marry a woma
l. like one of my sisters or any other man
rs sisters, not a woman who seemed
e. have composed herself out of tumble
s, re "reminiscences of the cheap novels 81
N had read. But there he was, as much
= earnest as any man could be, and the
IN was Ysonde Potwin, charmed to have
DIT second string to her bow. He took an l.
to finite amount of trouble to find bett
re runners for his jinrilxisha than she hs
~ for hers-and hers were uncommon
lie good-and they used to run mad rae
m every evening out beyond the cricke
ground, she in her Japanese dress, qui
tie without head-gear, and her short yello
to hair flying in the wind. They were lii
ay two children. L remembered her havil
he told me on the steamer that she new
ty travelled without a doll, and it seemed
he me that Scarlet had set up a doll in /
IT, turn, and that she was the doll TIL
lg bought each other endless presents-f
be the most part wooden cooking utens
of and Japanese artificers' tools they did,
up know how to use. He had been a d,
ly boy at school and an idle one, but S
=" made him stick to his Japanese lesso
to until they could manage to keep I'D sol
re kind of hating conversation. Then,
'et my horror, they announced that tn
ey We're going off to Kioto together G
an Ipostulated. / told Scarlet that she wo,
n !of course get herself talked about if S
ne went flying around the country with h
no without any chaperon; whereupon Sea
sly lett told me that / was a low-mind
e. Ibeast,and that Japan was not Englar
nd and that American women were I
at English women, and that in Ameri
Ike women were taught to take care of the
ey selves, and that if didn't think M
% iPotwin knew how to take care of hers
ly- had better not say so to him. I did
ist want to come to blows with Scarlet
ct Icause l liked him, and because I thous
chi 1T highly probable that he could pun
err my head several times before I CO,
res punch his once, so I addressed my