THE MAN IN THE NEXT COMPARTMENT It was one o’clock in the afternoon, and there was unusual activity in the railroad station at Yokohama. Uniformed officials were scurrying to and fro, bending every effort to dispose of the great crowd of stolid Japanese travelers and at the same time, with due formality and ceremony, provide a special train for their lately arrived American naval visitors. So painstaking and anxious were these energetic and efficient little personages to please those whom their government had chosen to honor, that suddenly, at a signal, they stemmed the great influx of their own people, sidetracked the steady and ever-increasing flow of bright colored silks, and did it as easily as if they were but putting a freight train on a siding. Not one murmur was heard from the crowd delayed so abruptly; the travelers waited, talking and laughing joyfully. To them it was all pleasure. There was no necessity for haste. When the honorable railroad officials were ready, then there would be plenty of time for them to get on their trains. They had no thought of questioning the acts of their Emperor’s officials, who wore the imperial badge of office--the sixteen petal chrysanthemum. “Did you ever see such docility on the part of a traveling public?” Midshipman Philip Perry exclaimed, gazing wonderingly at the good-natured, smiling faces of the Japanese about him. “Imagine, if you can, a New York crowd waiting like this at the Grand Central Station for a dozen Japanese officers to board a special train.” The midshipman was one of a party of American naval officers, recently arrived in Japan, and journeying as the guests of the Japanese nation to their picturesque and historic capital--Tokyo. Lieutenant Hugh Winston, one of the party, smiled knowingly as he read the wonder in the eyes of the two youngest of the party, Midshipmen Perry and Sydney Monroe. Winston was an officer of some years’ standing, and the character of the Japanese subject was one with which he considered himself on very intimate terms, after three cruises on the Asiatic Station in American war-ships. “You can compare the Mikado’s loyal subjects to no others on earth,” Winston returned. “Every man you see in this crowd has served his country as a soldier or sailor. All recognize an order when they hear it, and I can tell you they obey, too.” There was small doubt of their obedience. The good-humored crowd, increasing in numbers every minute, stood in orderly merriment watching the tall representatives of the United States of America, led by obsequious railroad officials, pass through their midst and into the coaches of a special train. Following the handful of naval officers in their severely plain civilian clothes came many score of American men-of-war’s men dressed in the picturesque sailor garb, while walking hand in hand with them the little Japanese sailors, the hosts of their giant visitors, appeared in striking contrast.