He called, without raising his voice, and from the distance came a long-drawn answering cry: "Hai-i-i, tadaima!" Presently there entered two ladies, followed by four maids bearing food on little lacquer trays. The ladies went down lightly on their knees and bent over till their heads touched the ground, murmuring "O hayo!" Bob was somewhat embarrassed, but Kobo said something in Japanese; the ladies rose, advanced, and said "Good morning!" with the prettiest accent imaginable. Kobo explained that they were his wife and daughter, O Kami San and O Toyo San. Bob would have taken them for sisters, so alike were they in the graceful kimonos of lilac-coloured silk, girt with rich brocaded obi. They knew but a few words of English, but Bob felt almost instantly at home, so simply and charmingly did they welcome him. Soon all four were seated on cushions on the floor, while the four musumés knelt in front of them, offering the first course of Bob’s first Japanese breakfast. It consisted of beautiful white cakes made of bean-flour and sugar, and little cups of weak tea. This was followed by a sort of fish broth in lacquer bowls, with a condiment made of shredded daikon—the Japanese radish—mingled with green herbs. Bob found that he had to pick morsels of fish from the broth with a pair of chop-sticks, dip them into the condiment, and poke them into his mouth; and his first clumsy attempts with these novel utensils did not call the shadow of a smile to the faces of his polite entertainers. Then came prawns in batter, fish cakes, rice in bowls of gold lacquer, preserved plums, crystallized walnuts, and other dishes, in many of which fish figured in some form or other: all in such midget quantities that Bob felt he would still be hungry if he swallowed the portions of all four. He felt as Gulliver might have felt at a state banquet in Lilliput. At his side throughout the meal stood a beautiful porcelain bottle filled with saké, a liquor tasting like weak beer and water. Bob did not like it, but he had accepted Kobo San’s invitation, and he was resolved to endure without flinching all that Japanese hospitality might involve. When the meal was finished the ladies withdrew, and Bob was asked by his host to accompany him in a drive. At the door the former found his boots, and the latter a pair of sandals, which he fastened by passing a thong between his big toe and the rest of his foot. Outside there waited two handsome rickshaws with their coolies, who set off down the hill towards the magnificent avenue of cryptomerias that stretches in one almost unbroken line for twenty miles.