THREE:Are you going home? asked the other. My wife, I know, is calling on Lady Keeling, and she will pick me up there. If she has not been so fortunate as to find Lady Keeling in, she will wait for me in the motor. May we not walk down there together?
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THREE:"It is the rule in Japan for a man to have only one wife at a time, but he does not always stick to it. If he has children, a man is generally contented; but if he has none, he gets another wife, and either divorces the first one or not, as he chooses. Divorce is very easy for a man to obtain, but not so for the woman; and when she is divorced, she has hardly any means of obtaining justice. But, in justice to the Japanese, it should be said that the men do not often abuse their opportunities for divorce, and that the married life of the people is about as good as that of most countries. Among the reasons for divorce, in addition to what I have mentioned, there are the usual ones that prevail in America. Furthermore, divorce is allowed if a wife is disobedient to her husband's parents, and[Pg 262] also if she talks too much. The last reason is the one most frequently given; but a woman cannot complain of her husband and become divorced from him for the same cause. I wonder if Japan is the only country in the world where women have ever been accused of talking too much.The Japanese dogs were also objects of interest to our young friends, though less so than the cats and the goldfish. They have several varieties of dogs in Japan, some of them being quite without hair, while others have very thick coats. The latter are the most highly prized, and the shorter their noses, the more valuable they are considered. Fred found a dog, about the size of a King Charles spaniel, that had a nose only half an inch long. He was boasting of his discovery, when Frank pointed out one that had less than a third of an inch. Then the two kept on the hunt for the latest improvement in dogs, as Frank expressed it, and they finally found one that had no nose at all. The nostrils were set directly in the end of the little fellow's head, and his under-jaw was so short that the operations of barking and eating were not very easy to perform. In spite of the difficulty of barking, he made a great deal of noise when the boys attempted to examine him, and he gave Frank to understand in the most[Pg 155] practical way that a noseless dog can bite. As they walked away from the shop where they found him, he kept up a continual snarling, which led to the remark by Fred that a noseless dog was very far from noiseless.
THREE:But he was alive. The Doctor had made sure of that by certain tentative experiments; and he had also taken advantage of his passive condition in order to make a thorough examinationso far as was possibleof this marvel of the future. As a result of his investigation, the Doctor had failed to come to any definite conclusion; there was merely deepened in him a sense of outrage and revolt. It was impossible to accept the Clockwork man as a human being.Arthur became aware of two other figures approaching the one he was watching so intently. They were Gregg, the captain of the team, and Doctor Allingham. The yellow braid on their blazers shone in the sunlight, and Arthur could see the blue emblem on Gregg's pocket. There would have to be a meeting. The two flanelled figures were strolling along in a direct line towards that other oddly insistent form. Arthur caught his breath. Somehow he dreaded that encounter. When he looked again there was some kind of confabulation going on. Curiously enough, it was Doctor Allingham and Gregg who seemed[Pg 23] incapable of movement now. They stood there, with their hands in their pockets, staring, listening. But the Clockwork man was apparently making the utmost use of his limited range of action. His arms were busy. Sometimes he kicked a leg up, as though to emphasise some tremendously important point. And now and again he jabbed a finger out-wards in the direction of the field of play. Arthur caught the sound of a high, squeaky voice borne upon the light breeze.
THREE:The second morning after leaving Yokohama, they were at Kobe, and the steamer anchored off the town. Kobe and Hiogo are practically one and the same place. The Japanese city that stands there was formerly known as Hiogo, and still retains that name, while the name of Kobe was applied to that portion where the foreigners reside. The view from the water is quite pretty, as there is a line of mountains just back of the city; and as the boys looked intently they could see that the mountains were inhabited. There are several neat little houses on the side of the hills, some of them the residences of the foreigners who go there to get the cool air, while the rest are the homes of the Japanese. There is a liberal allowance of tea-houses where the public can go to be refreshed, and there is a waterfall where a mountain stream comes rattling down from the rocks to a deep pool, where groups of bathers are sure to congregate in fine weather. The town stands on a level plain, where a point juts into the water, and there is nothing remarkable about it. If they had not seen Yokohama and Tokio, they might have found it interesting; but after those cities the boys were not long in agreeing that a short time in Kobe would be all they would wish.