"I'm willing," I responded, and we all laughed. The younger horseman asked my name. "Smith," I said, with dignity, and they laughed again, their laugh growing louder when I would not smile.
FORE:Up to this point there would have been nothing to surprise or amaze him; he might not even have blushed to see how, when her meditations were done, she pored over the title page where he had written her name with good wishes from her friend C. S. She kissed that page before putting the book away in a box, which contained two or three notes from him, which she read through before locking them up again. They were perfectly harmless little notes, only no man should ever have written them. One had been received only this morning, and she had not read it more than a dozen times yet. It ran"Even if he's a myth," interrupted Gregg, "he is still worth investigating. What annoys me is your positive antagonism to the idea that he might be possible. You seem to want to go out of your way to prove me in the wrong. I may add, that once a man has ceased to believe in the impossible he is damned."
"Why," said I, "as to that, Lieutenant Ferry believes there's something right about everything that's beautiful, and something wrong about everything that isn't. Now, of course that's a very dangerous idea, and yet--" So I went on; ah me! the nightmare of it hangs over me yet, "religionist" though I am, after a fashion, unto this day. In Ferry's defence I maintained that only so much of any man's religion as fitted him, and fitted him not as his saddle or his clothes, but as his nervous system fitted him, was really his, or was really religion. I said I knew a man whose ready-made religion, small as it was, bagged all over him and made him as grotesque as a child in his father's trousers. The chaplain tittered so approvingly that I straightened to spout again, but just then we saw three distant figures that I knew at a glance.Keeling nodded to Charles.{94}The grave smile with which she had welcomed him grew a shade graver, a shade more tender.Before reaching Hakone it was necessary to traverse a mountain pass, by ascending a very steep road to the summit and then descending another. In the wildest part of the mountains they came to a little village, which has a considerable fame for its hot springs. The boys had a fancy to bathe in these springs, and, as the coolies needed a little rest after their toilsome walk, it was agreed to halt awhile. There were several of the[Pg 201] springs, and the water was gathered in pools, which had a very inviting appearance and increased the desire of our friends to try them. They went into one of the small rooms provided for the purpose, removed their clothing, and then plunged in simultaneously. They came out instantly, and without any request to do so by the Doctor, who stood laughing at the edge of the pool. For their skins the water was almost scalding-hot, though it was far otherwise to the Japanese. The Japanese are very fond of hot baths, and will bathe in water of a temperature so high that a foreigner cannot endure it except after long practice. The baths here in the mountains were just suited to the native taste; and Frank said they would be suited to his taste as well if they could have a few blocks of ice thrown into them.Foolish, idle cry, and meant for no more, by a heart on fire with temptations of which I knew nothing. But then and there my poor adolescent soul found out that the preceptive stuff of which it had built its treasure-house and citadel was not fire-proof.
