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Go home, man, and find her again in her dirty hut by the sea.’
He went home, to find the glories, the riches, and the palaces vanished, and his wife sitting in the old hut, an example of the consequences of impious ambition.
Notwithstanding the general resemblance between the German story of the fisherman and the Japanese one of the ambitious mice, the differences in treatment are so great that it may fairly be questioned whether they have a common origin. The story of the Japanese stone-cutter, as told in the Dutch novel, forms a kind of link between the two, but until we are sure that the peculiar features contained in it which bring it nearer to the German legend, have not been added by the author of the novel, we can form no satisfactory conclusion on the subject. The three legends, however, together furnish an instructive example of the manner in which one leading idea may be varied and decorated.
The last story I have to refer to is one which was printed in the Japan Mail of November 28th, 1874, and which I am informed is current amongst the old-wives of Japan at the present day.
It is entitled
“A Retort in Kind.”
‘Kisaburo, a man of a careful and saving disposition, abandoned his old lodgings and took a small dwelling next door to a famous eel-house. Now as every one knows that the titillating odour of eels fried in soy may he perceived far and near, Kisaburo found this change of quarters vastly to his advantage, and eat his simple meal of rice to the accompaniment of the delicious smell, dispensing with the usual adjuncts of fish or vegetables.
The eel-man was not slow to discover this, and determining at length to ask his frugal-minded neighbour for payment, took him an account for the “smell” of his eels. Kisabure eyed him astutely, and drawing from his pocket-book the amount claimed from him, laid the money on the bill and began to converse with his visitor. The latter
