"Hints!" echoed Todd; "that is just the wonder of you! They are hints in reality, thoughts to be absorbed only just so far as you need them, and the rest chucked. You don't stick them on like plaster to cover up a mediæval birthmark. You have quite as much to give as we, and you know it. Haven't I watched and studied, with Kanrio here to coach? You Japanese alone can combine the best of the two civilizations. You can best fuse the experience, character, insight, humanity--of both long-suffering hemispheres. We Americans are just ourselves; but you are we, and all the rest of it! That's why your old gods set you on the fighting line. You are a whole laboratory experiment in sociology, all to yourselves!" "I perceive that you have been thinking carefully upon us," said Hagané, still conventional, contained; but his one upward look, instantly withdrawn, had the "swish" of a scythe. "It isn't all admiration, you know!" exclaimed Todd, with an impulsiveness far more flattering than reserve. "You have made, it seems to me, some thundering bad mistakes,--like the dropping of Port Arthur at the first growl of that bear, Russia. But you've got your second wind all right. You Japanese know, better than any American or Englishman, that Russian preponderance in China means a walled continent of tyranny, the gates guarded by Greek fire. If you conquer, your best interests are at one with the progress of an enlightened twentieth-century world. Now, your Highness, deny it if you can!" He leaned back, his thin face aglow. Hagané apparently had difficulty in keeping eyes upon the table. "You--er--pass through the waving branches," said he, very slowly, "and cleave to the heart of the tree. So only are the rings of epochs counted. Do others of your countrymen think thus?" "Well," said Todd, "to be honest, I judge that most of my countrymen would prefer sitting on the bough, stealing apples, rather than counting concentric rings. I guess love of the East must have been born with me." "Interesting, interesting!" murmured Hagané. "And yet, your Excellency, though indigenous, something must have fed the growth. Every development possess, I think, allotted kind of nourishment." "Oh, events contributed, I presume. Now and then things turned up just when they were wanted." Todd was surprised at his own ease in the great man's presence. He drew inspiration, not awe, from the intelligent eyes and slow, suggestive smile. "Yes, things _came_! I planted your Forty-Seven Ronin into my biggest field of wheat! And my old mule, Kuranosuké, did me better work than any span of horses. Then, your Highness, the baron here--oh, you needn't shake your finger, Baron!--pointed me to heavenly manna; and the child Yuki, my daughter's friend, led me into paths that adult eyes could never have seen."