when he drew up before the inn it designated. The existence of a
better was legible on the face of it. We pushed on.

Happily the hostelries were mostly in one quarter, the better to keep
an eye on one another; for in the course of the next ten minutes I
suppose we visited nearly every inn in the place. The choice was not
a whit furthered by the change from the outposts to the originals.
At last, however, I got so far in decision as to pull off my boots,
--an act elsewhere as well, I believe, considered an acquiescence in
fate,--and suffered myself to be led through the house, along the
indoor piazza of polished board exceeding slippery, up several
breakneck, ladder-like stairways even more polished and frictionless,
round some corners dark as a dim andon (a feeble tallow candle
blinded by a paper box), placed so as not to light the turn, could
make them, until finally we emerged on the third story, a height that
itself spoke for the superiority of the inn, and I was ushered into
what my bewildered fancy instantly pictured a mediaeval banqueting
hall. It conjured up the idea on what I must own to have been
insufficient grounds, namely, a plain deal table and a set of
questionably made, though rather gaudily upholstered chairs.
But chairs, in a land whose people have from time immemorial found
their own feet quite good enough to sit on, were so unexpected a
luxury, even after our Takasaki experience, that they may be pardoned
for suggesting any flight of fancy.

The same might formerly have been said of the illumination next
introduced. Now, however, common kerosene lamps are no longer so
much of a sight even in Japan. Indeed, I had the assurance to ask
for a shade to go with the one they set on the table in all the glaring
nudity of a plain chimney. This there was some difficulty in finding,