Mr. Schuyler grasped my hand ever so hard. My hand was buried in his palm. His manner was courteously boyish. His body is erect like a redwood. Such an old gentleman gives me the impression of another race from the divine realm of everlasting youth. A Jap after fifty is capped with “retired.” But the work of the American gentleman is only finished when he dies. Great Meriken Jin! Mr. Schuyler shows more civility to his servants than to his wife. Here I can study the typical household of America’s best caste. 6th—“Anata donata?” I rubbed my dreamy eyes, scanning my room. Who was the Japanese speaker? I crept to the door, and opened it slightly. Not a soul was there. I heard the trivial clatter of the kitchen stepping up. I dipped into my bed again. I smiled sceptically, thinking that I must have been dreaming. “Gokigen ikaga?” I was addressed again by the same voice. I said that there was positively some mischief in my room. I leaped down from the bed. I inspected my slippers. I made sure there was nothing strange under the pictures on the wall. I tugged at the drawers. I tumbled every blanket. I pried in the pitcher. I sat on the bed wrapped in fog. The blind rustled. The sunbeams crawled in marvellously. Then I was frightened by another speech, “Nihonjin desu.” I declared that it flew in from the outside. I rolled up the blind. Oya, oya! There was a parrot perching in a cage by my window! He adjusted his showy coat first, and then sent me his inquisitive eyes. “Anata donata?” he repeated. “Morning Glory is my insignificant name, sir,” I replied. A trifling toss of his head showed his satisfaction in my name. I thought he was trying to set me at ease with his smile. “Gokigen ikaga?” “I feel splendidly, thank you, Mr. Parrot!” I said. Then pressing his head backward he looked haughtily at me with fixed eyes, and announced: “Nihonjin desu.” “I’m also a Jap,” I muttered. He was the most profound Japanese scholar, Mrs. Schuyler said, in all Los Angeles. Mr. Schuyler Jr. brought him from Kobe last spring. I told her the incident of this morning. She laughed, she said she expected it. Bad Mother Schuyler! 17th—Dear Baby! Kawaii koto! I hugged the baby of Mrs. Schuyler Jr. and kissed it. Her husband is away in Japan for the tea business. It was the darling baby, I thank the gods, who received my first kiss. It’s heavenly to stamp love with a kiss. Lips are the portal of the human heart. Kiss is sweet. I say that it marks an epoch in the spiritual evolution of the Japanese when they learn what a kiss is—but not how to kiss. The baby crawled like a sportive crab. It orationed. It! I felt sorry that “It” would soon be changed to “He” or “She.” It caught sight of a piece of burnt match in the course of its expedition. It turned its way and clinched it with its fingers. It hastened to the mother to exhibit it, and waited patiently with its great game for Mamma’s praise.