The Days of a Man 1*900 



tomed to. Thenceforth, he ordered, only black ones 

 should appear on his own table. 



This same man had a spendthrift nephew who tried 

 to borrow money of him. But the young fellow 

 smoked a gold pipe, a thing the daimyo said he could 

 not himself afford, and he would lend no more money 

 to such a wastrel. 'But a gold pipe lasts for years," 

 pleaded the young swell. 'What, you don't smoke 

 the same one twice, do you?' asked the horrified 

 Poor uncle. For while his own pipes were brass, and rela- 

 tively cheap, he took a fresh one for each round. 



Approaching Sendai on our return, I received a 

 telegram from the mayor asking me to spend the 

 evening with him and the council in a discussion as to 

 ; 'how to make Sendai a better city." We thus sat 

 together on a large open veranda, comfortably cool 

 in spite of the hot evening, but attacked by scores of 

 the big, aggressive mosquito of the north. This 

 carries no malaria, but is unfortunately a nuisance 

 the people can hardly hope to abate in that land of 

 heavy summer rains and ubiquitous standing pools. 

 The sage Hayakawa, the town sage, acted as spokesman. 

 I n suggestive and dignified remarks, he compared 

 Japan to a boy brought up in the backwoods but now 

 come to his majority and realizing how much was to 

 be learned before he could take his proper place in 

 society. America seemed like an older brother, 

 already experienced and willing to help. The Japan- 

 ese in California, he said, must have been unworthy, 

 otherwise there would not be a great outcry against 

 them. He therefore hoped that only men of char- 

 acter would go to America in the future, not those who 

 discredit their race; he evidently saw no reason why 



C 64 ] 



