start in that business.

"You look like one quite taken about art. Suppose you begin patronizing
my business just for fun as er--connoisseur of art?"

It was the least expected kind of solicitation. Two years ago, I went to
the Imperial Hotel (Tokyo) on an errand, and I was taken for a
locksmith. When I went to see the Daibutsu at Kamakura, haying wrapped
up myself from head to toe with a blanket, a rikisha man addressed me as
"Gov'ner." I have been mistaken on many occasions for as many things,
but none so far has counted on me as a probable connoisseur of art. One
should know better by my appearance. Any one who aspires to be a patron
of art is usually pictured,--you may see in any drawing,--with either a
hood on his head, or carrying a tanzaku[3] in his hand. The fellow who
calls me a connoisseur of art and pretends to mean it, may be surely as
crooked as a dog's hind legs. I told him I did not like such art-stuff,
which is usually favored by retired people. He laughed, and remarking
that that nobody liked it at first, but once in it, will find it so
fascinating that he will hardly get over it, served tea for himself and
drank it in a grotesque manner. I may say that I had asked him the night
before to buy some tea for me, but I did not like such a bitter, heavy
kind. One swallow seemed to act right on my stomach. I told him to buy a
kind not so bitter as that, and he answered "All right, Sir," and drank
another cup. The fellow seemed never to know of having enough of
anything so long as it was another man's. After he left the room, I
prepared for the morrow and went to bed.

[Footnote 3: A tanzaku is a long, narrow strip of stiff paper on which a
Japanese poem is written.]