terfere with his presence there in the least, from the village ragamuffin to the village belle. Charming girls I noticed in the act of commenting upon us, I trust favorably; for, as one of my friends puts it about his books, I would rather please the young girls than the old men.
But though we had not reckoned without our host, we had reckoned, it soon turned out, without our uninvited guest—the inevitable policeman. Just as we had taken chairs on the oratory platform, and had forgotten his existence, he turned up. He did so inopportunely for himself, for the first prayer had begun, and he had perforce to wait till it was over to put his official questions. The prayer was the first of the purification rites, and was offered before an improvised altar on the oratory. The altar was set out as the customary divine dinner-table and displayed the usual choice collection of indigestibles; fortunately always to be taken in a strictly immaterial manner. For every Shintō service is nothing but a divine dinner-party, with the god for sole guest. In this case the aboriginal banquet was offered to the gohei of O-ana-muchi-no-mikoto, the patron god of the occasion.
