"Good-morning, sir," said the Japanese with perfect accent at almost the same moment, bowing with inimitable grace. Bob instinctively bowed in response, but felt that his salutation was awkward and stiff by contrast. "I trust, sir, that you will pardon my intruding upon you at this hour. I feared lest I should not have the opportunity of thanking you in my own person for the very great service which you have rendered to me and to my house." His mode of speech was measured, even, and perfectly correct, somewhat stilted perhaps, with an old-world flavour that belonged to a courtlier age than our own. "You may remember, sir, two days ago, in our Ueno Park, you rescued one of my countrymen from the hands of a Chinaman, who I have every reason to think would have killed him but for your generous intervention. The Chinaman was a man of evil character, a desperate man, a villain; the Japanese, who owes his life to you, is—my servant. I thank you." "Really, sir," said Bob, somewhat embarrassed, "it was a very small matter; I merely hauled the fellow off, and he bolted." "To you, sir, it may have been a small matter. It is an instinct with your countrymen to help the man who is down. To you it is a mere nothing; but to me, it represents much, very much. The man you rescued is my servant; his forefathers have served mine these five hundred years." "I am very glad, sir, that I happened to be passing just at the moment. May I congratulate you on your man? He tackled the big Chinaman with fine courage." "He is a brave man indeed, but he grows old. Ten years ago he was with me in the China war; he was in his prime; there was not his equal in our army. The Manchu, as you saw, is a man of more than common strength, but in single fight with my servant at Feng-huang-cheng he escaped with difficulty, and the loss of an ear." "The loss of an ear!" repeated Bob. "Surely he cannot be the man we picked up off Nagasaki?" Kobo San’s expression betrayed just a hint of enquiry, and Bob proceeded to give an account of the Chinaman’s rescue. This was the beginning of a long conversation, which, starting with Kobo’s previous relations with the Manchu, drifted away into a variety of subjects, giving Bob every now and again a suggestion of his visitor’s extraordinary range and versatility. He was clearly a man of wide reading and many interests, had been a great traveller in his younger days, and spoke as though at home equally in all the great capitals of the west. So interested was Bob that he did not notice the increasing number of rickshaws halting at the entrance to the hotel, depositing guests laden with strange bundles, the spoils of long chaffering in the Naka-dori.