On the curb peripatetic dealers squat in little stalls formed of movable screens with their wares spread before them; curio-merchants with a _mélange_ of brass, crystal and bronze; dealers in _suzumushi_--musical insects in the tiniest cages of plaited straw; sellers of Buddhist texts and worm-eaten, painted scrolls; of ink-horns, shoe-sticks, eye-glasses and children's toys. At intervals grills of savory _waka-fuji_ (salted fry-cakes) sizzle over charcoal braziers which throw a red glow on an intent row of children's faces. Here and there a shop-front emits the blatant bark of a foreign phonograph. On the corners men with arms full of vernacular evening newspapers call the names of the sheets in musical cadences, with a quaint, upward inflection. The air is filled with a heavy, rich odor, suggesting the pomade of women's head-dresses, _saké_, and sandalwood. In the roadway every vehicle contributes its bobbing lantern, till the traffic seems a celestial Saturnalia, staggering with drunken stars. So it looked to Barbara as her two _goriki_--"strong-pull men"--whirled her rubber-tired _rick'sha_ across the interminable city in her first bewildering view of Tokyo by night. Daunt, for her benefit, had arranged a trip to the Cherry-Viewing-Festival on the Sumida River, and a Japanese dinner at the Ogets'--the Cherry-Moon Tea-House--in the famous district of Asak'sa, where the great temple of Kwan-on the Merciful shines with its ever-burning candles. They had started from the Embassy: Baroness Stroloff, the wife of the Bulgarian Minister and Patricia's especial favorite, the twin sisters of the Danish Secretary, the Swiss Minister's daughter and two young army officers studying the language--all of whom Barbara had met at the Review--and the long procession (since police regulations in Tokyo forbid _rick'sha_ to travel abreast) trailed "goose-fashion," threading in and out, a writhing, yellow-linked chain. Daunt had traced their route with Barbara on a map of the city, and had translated for her the names of the streets through which they were now passing. By the Street-of-Big-Horses they skirted the District-of-Honorable-Tea-Water, threaded the Lane-where-Good-Luck-Dwells, and so, by Middle-Monkey-Music-Street, they came to the Sumida, a broader, slothful Thames, gleaming with ten thousand lanterns on _sampan_, houseboats and barges. The bridge of Ah-My-Wife brought them to the farther side. At the entrance of a long avenue of blooming cherry-trees a policeman halted them. _Rick'sha_ were not permitted beyond this point and the sweating human horses were abandoned.