Page:My Japanese Wife.djvu/229

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MY JAPANESE WIFE.
215

voice giving directions to the men who, with dilapidated rikishas now turned into hand-trucks, are loading up our luggage to take it down to the quay and on board the steamer.

“That is the last,” we hear Oka say in gruff tones; “mind that the honourable English sir’s effects are not damaged.”

“Yes, that is the last,” says one of the porters.

“This is the last,” says Mousmé, opening her hand over the gold-fish pond.

We go up the path to the house in silence; look sorrowfully into each of the bare, empty rooms; take leave of Oka, and Oka’s wife, who is in tears; press a shining new yen into each of the innumerable children’s hands, even into that of the brown baby in Oka’s wife’s arms, whose tiny fist is not large enough to hold the shining silver, in which it sees only a new plaything; and then walk away out of the