All this she told us as she helped us, always with the iron ladle, to that terrific stew. With the foreign food too, we had “foreign” china, horrible railway-restaurant plates and cups, clumsy and thick, sprawled all over with a large design in bilious blue; knives and forks that never matched, and, of course, the inevitable cruet. This hideous article is always the first vestige of “foreign” fashion in a Japanese hotel, where it accompanies every meal. Once it may have been of German silver; it is all drab now. Long centuries of use have left it bent and dinted. Its bottles leak, their stoppers never fit, and whatever they once held, all now drip oil and taste soy. We thought of our dainty lacquered trays, our delicate white china with drawings in faint blue, the refinement and the art of that meal, and we sighed. The fish they could not spoil, and their tea is always good, so we breakfasted. And the plain daughter, whose ambitions (or her mother’s) soared to Tokyo heights of fashion, asked if everything was really “_yoroshī_” upon the table, and, if not, “would we show her how?” The knives and forks had puzzled her woefully; how ought they to be laid? So we laid the table, and we set the forks, and we placed the bread, and we handed plates and glasses, and the ancient grandmother shook with astonishment. Was ever like seen under the sun? And even the capable landlady exclaimed. So the conscientious plain daughter worked through her knives and forks, her bread on this side and her glasses on that, with the zeal of an earnest student; and afterwards we caught her displaying her great accomplishment to a circle of admiring friends. * * * * * We were to see the sights of Matsué. Our friend from the Prefecture and the black squirrel of a landlord had talked it over exhaustively the night before. We were catered for like Royal visitors. We did not need to plan, or ask, or seek. “Honourably trouble not. It happens.” And it did. That morning the landlord, in a long polite speech, made us over to his son, a quiet clever lad who might have been the twin of his plain sister; and we set off. We wished to stop for many things, temples and toy shops, the peeps of life on street and wharf, but our guide, though never contradicting, was so preoccupied, so intent on something that we gave in and meekly followed down the long streets over the many canals, whose bridges showed an arch like the young crescent of the moon, along the hot white road, until we reached an ugly wooden building in the style called “foreign,” all decorated with flags and policemen. Here we entered. The policemen drew up in line as we passed, and the scurrying feet of a dozen officials all clothed in long frock-coats came down the vestibule.