--'Here, too, some time ago,' said Baron C., 'a Japanese jiujitsu master once came to Paris and gave an exhibition at a theatre, challenging, with the offer of a prize, any Frenchman who would combat with him. No Frenchman won. They were beaten one after the other. The people did not like so much humiliation, and the audience decreased, so the master had to go back to London; such is the Frenchman.' --'Well,' said I, 'it might have been only a momentary caprice, perhaps because Japan is not your ally, but the audience could not have been diminished for such a cause as you say. There can be no notion of humiliation, because it is a question of art. However, if the Occidentals, with their natural strength and physique, become well equipped with that art, we the small Japs shall never be a match for them; so I would rather wish you Occidentals do not learn the art.' All present broke into laughter, and in a minute or two I was once more wafted through the air and making my way elsewhere. III Japanese art and the West--Night-fêtes--Sale of flowers and plants--Singing Insects--A discussion on the moon, flowers, snow, etc.--Music of snow and rain--Lines on hailstones--A particular evening for lunar perspective--A blind scholar and his wife--The deaf, dumb, and blind of Japan--The calendar and its radical change in Japan--Calumnies on Japan, and an anonymous letter--Japanese ways of counting ages--The question of women and a lady's opinion on Japanese women--Lafcadio Hearn--Japanese names--Difficulty of distinguishing between 'L' and 'R'--Discussion on pronunciation--London and Tokio patois--Japanese nobility and the method of addressing nobility --Books on Japan--Once more on Lafcadio Hearn--Discussion on women's education--_The Risen Sun_ Time and space in dreamland have become more inconsecutive, and events have crowded rapidly one on another. In dreamland, moreover, one frequently sees in an incongruous group people who in ordinary life seldom come into contact with one another. Such is my experience. Now I found myself guest at a reception given by a lady whose residence was in the neighbourhood of the Grand Opera, where I met a number of authors and critics of both sexes. Then at our Legation, near the l'Arc de Triomphe, where I was spending the evening in a large company, which included several ladies of my own country. Again at the soirée of an association interested in things Japanese, where also were members of both sexes, and then, hey presto! all these events and places would transform themselves into one single scene, as though they had been but one and the same gathering.