LETTER XX--(Concluded)



A Casual Invitation--A Ludicrous Incident--Politeness of a
Policeman--A Comfortless Sunday--An Outrageous Irruption--A
Privileged Stare.

At a wayside tea-house, soon after leaving Rokugo in kurumas, I met
the same courteous and agreeable young doctor who was stationed at
Innai during the prevalence of kak'ke, and he invited me to visit
the hospital at Kubota, of which he is junior physician, and told
Ito of a restaurant at which "foreign food" can be obtained--a
pleasant prospect, of which he is always reminding me.

Travelling along a very narrow road, I as usual first, we met a man
leading a prisoner by a rope, followed by a policeman. As soon as
my runner saw the latter he fell down on his face so suddenly in
the shafts as nearly to throw me out, at the same time trying to
wriggle into a garment which he had carried on the crossbar, while
the young men who were drawing the two kurumas behind, crouching
behind my vehicle, tried to scuttle into their clothes. I never
saw such a picture of abjectness as my man presented. He trembled
from head to foot, and illustrated that queer phrase often heard in
Scotch Presbyterian prayers, "Lay our hands on our mouths and our
mouths in the dust." He literally grovelled in the dust, and with
every sentence that the policeman spoke raised his head a little,
to bow it yet more deeply than before. It was all because he had
no clothes on. I interceded for him as the day was very hot, and
the policeman said he would not arrest him, as he should otherwise