Yuki sighed. "I know. Well, let us see all that we can in the short space. This room is but the dining-room, where, as you have seen, we eat foreign meals. There is a Japanese wing and smaller dining-room, which I shall often use when my master is absent. Now let us go into the long hall, then into the zashiki, or drawing-room." In passing the hall-way she saw Maru's eyes fasten on the telephone box. It had, indeed, an unrelated, black look, set so squarely against the flowered wall-paper. Yuki felt the tug on an inspiration. "Come, mother; I shall not need to write to my friend. I shall talk to her through this! Like the old sennin (genii), who whispered to each other from peak to crag of far mountains, I shall talk clearly to the slope of Azabu!" Iriya caught her sleeve. "I fear for you to talk in that strange way, my child. The gods may not like it." "Ah, mother, in America I have talked for hours and was not injured." "Our gods were not in America to see," murmured Iriya, and followed with evident reluctance. Suzumé and Maru came close behind. Yuki boldly pulled down the receiver and held it to her ear. The servants uttered short squeaks like mice. "Moshi, moshi!" called Yuki, giving the Japanese telephone cry. Maru shuddered. "Is it a deaf devil, that the o jo san speaks so loudly?" "A whole nest of devils, Maru San," said Yuki, with mischievous and impressive gravity. "There are green and red devils like those that the lightning bolts bring down, and little foreign devils in boots and beards, and--" "Oh, let us go! let us go!" cried the little maid, and clutched Suzumé's sleeve. "America no K[=o]shikwan," Yuki was replying, in apparent unconcern, to the devils. Suzumé had realized the situation. "Fool!" she said to the cringing Maru, giving a scowl and a light cuff on the ear, "the princess is only telegraphing in talk instead of writing. The house-servants laugh at you. We shall have no face!" By this time the imperilled princess was talking rapidly in English. Her countenance quivered, brightened, changed, as if a person stood before her. In pause of listening she would nod, smile, listen again, giving murmured ejaculations. The verisimilitude proved too much for Maru. In spite of cuffs fiercely renewed, and a desperate effort to keep her limp body from the floor, she sank from her mentor's grasp, clutching the thin old legs, and sobbing, "They are bewitching our Miss Yuki,--I know they are! Foxes are shut in that black box! She will get full of them, and then they will all fly out to eat our hearts!" "They'd have a sop of sour jelly with yours, cuttlefish!" said Suzumé, kicking in disgust. Finally, in utter exasperation, she seized the culprit by the ear, sliding her bodily down the hardwood floor, and depositing her in a moaning heap on the back veranda beneath a water-cooler.