18 years old. (Why does the ’Merican lady regard it as an insult to be asked her own age?) My knitting work wasn’t half done. I look upon it as an omen that I shall have no luck in meeting with my husband. Tsumaranai! What a barren life! * * * * * Our great minister was placing a button on his shirt. His trembling fingers were uncertain. I snatched the shirt from his hand and exhibited my craft with the needle. “I fancied that you modern girls were perfect strangers to the needle,” he said. He is not blockish, I thought, since he permits himself to employ irony. My uncle was lamenting that he had not even one cigar left. Both those gentlemen offered to help me in my dressing at the landing. I declined gracefully. Where is my looking-glass? I must present myself very—very pretty. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Illustration: IN AMERIKEY ] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ IN AMERIKEY SAN FRANCISCO, night, 21st “Good-bye, Mr. Belgic!” I delight in personifying everything as a gentleman. What does it mean under the sun! Kitsune ni tsukamareta wa! Evil fox, I suppose, got hold of me. “Gentlemen, is this real Amerikey?” I exclaimed. Oya, ma, my Meriken dream was a complete failure. Did I ever fancy any sky-invading dragon of smoke in my own America? The smoke stifled me. Why did I lock up my perfume bottle in my trunk? I hardly endured the smell from the wagons at the wharf. Their rattling noise thrust itself into my head. A squad of Chinamen there puffed incessantly the menacing smell of cigars. Were I the mayor of San Francisco—how romantic “the Mayor, Miss Morning Glory” sounds!—I would not pause a moment before erecting free bath-houses around the wharf. I never dreamed that human beings could cast such an insulting smell. The smell of honourable wagon drivers is the smell of a M-O-N-K-E-Y. Their wild faces also prove their likeness to it. They must have furnished all the evidence to Mr. Darwin. “The better part lies some distance from here,” said my uncle. I exclaimed how inhospitable the Americans were to receive visitors from the back door of the city. We are not empty-stomached tramps rapping the kitchen door for a crust of bread. * * * * * We refused hotel carriage. We walked from the Oriental wharf for the sake of the street sight-seeing. Tamageta wa! A house was whirling along the street. Look at the horseless car! How could it be possible to pull it with a rope under ground! Everything reveals a huge scale of measurement. The continental spectacle is different from that of our islands. We 40,000,000 Japs must raise our heads from wee bits of land. There’s no room to stretch elbows. We have to stay like dwarf trees.