BOTCHAN
pictured,–you may see in any drawing,–with either a hood on his head, or carrying a tanzaku[1] in his hand. The fellow who calls me a connoisseur of art and pretends to mean it, may be surely as crooked as a dog’s hind legs. I told him I did not like such art-stuff, which is usually favored by retired people. He laughed, and remarking that that nobody liked it at first, but once in it, will find it so fascinating that he will hardly get over it, served tea for himself and drank it in a grotesque manner. I may say that I had asked him the night before to buy some tea for me, but I did not like such a bitter, heavy kind. One swallow seemed to act right on my stomach. I told him to buy a kind not so bitter as that, and he answered “All right, Sir,” and drank another cup. The fellow seemed never to know of having enough of anything so long as it was another man’s. After he left the room, I
- ↑ A tanzaku is a long, narrow strip of stiff paper on which a Japanese poem is written.
–51–
