Now it happened that a young Japanese, whose daily work was to pull
along those light carriages such as were seen at the last Paris
Exhibition, picked up one day in the street a small pocket hand-mirror,
probably dropped by some English lady-tourist on her travels in that
part of the world.

It was, of course, the first time in his life that Kiki-Tsum had ever
gazed on such a thing. He looked carefully at it, and to his intense
astonishment saw the image of a brown face, with dark, intelligent eyes,
and a look of awestruck wonderment expressed on its features.

Kiki-Tsum dropped on his knees, and gazing earnestly at the object he
held in his hand, he whispered, "It is my sainted father. How could his
portrait have come here? Is it, perhaps, a warning of some kind for me?"

He carefully folded the precious treasure up in his handkerchief, and
put it in the large pocket of his loose blouse. When he went home that
night he hid it away carefully in a vase which was scarcely ever
touched, as he did not know of any safer place in which to deposit it.
He said nothing of the adventure to his young wife, for, as he said to
himself "Women are curious, and then, too, _sometimes_ they are given to
talking," and Kiki-Tsum felt that it was too reverent a matter to be
discussed by neighbours, this finding of his dead father's portrait in
the street.

For some days Kiki-Tsum was in a great state of excitement. He was
thinking of the portrait all the time, and at intervals he would leave
his work and suddenly appear at home to take a furtive look at
his treasure.