It was one night at the Tea-house (chaya) of the Plum Grove. I had come up there with Kotmasu. The djins, bare-legged, panting runners, had rushed us along in the inevitable rikishas to this suburban resort up the hillside.
The town, illuminated with thousands of lanterns hung outside even the smallest of the houses, became, as we climbed upwards to our destination, a fairyland of colour and delight, as it always did at nightfall. In the silent waters of the harbour this gay scene was repeated by reflection in the glassy surface.
Upwards we went, Kotmasu and I; he calling to me every now and then, as his rikisha, spider-like phantom of a vehicle, was momentarily lost in the gloom to reappear just as suddenly in the patch of light thrown by some paper lantern swinging to mark the gateway of a villa retired from the road.
