From the sounds of passing feet, and the directing words of our comely landlady, it seemed that great things were preparing for us--quite what remained a mystery. At last the plain daughter, bubbling with the pleasure of our surprise, came to call us. “As for the morning meal,” she said, “all is prepared,” and even the ceremony of her bows suffered from her eagerness. We went through the half-wall of _shōji_ panels, across a room, into another, where the family, all assembled, almost (had it not been entirely un-Japanese) clapped its hands in pride. There on the matting, and each leg protected by a supporting slab of wood, stood a foreign table; four foreign chairs, their legs too nailed into long slats of wood, stood round. Across a corner of the table lay a thin strip of cotton cloth, and on this, in all the majesty of its solid ugliness, reposed the white meat-dish of our god-like drink. This morning it was full of something smoking, dimly resembling Irish stew. The comely landlady beamed as we approached. “Sea-food forthcomes,” she said proudly. And to our “foreign” breakfast we sat slowly down. How bad it was! But the family, even to the old, old grandmother, were so delighted, so proud of their unexpected triumph, that we ate that abominable stew till not a fragment of its tough meat or a spoonful of its gluey gravy remained. Many times since have I wondered how that Napoleonic landlady organised the feast? How did she get the meat? Who cooked it? and where did they learn? Did she invent the recipe out of her own head? Perhaps she raided the garrison? She was capable of it. There was bread too. Matsué was quite in the front of the fashion; not like poor Kizuki, which was sadly out of date; they hadn’t even _bīru_ (beer) there.