CHAPTER XIX.

A JAPANESE THEATRE.

WE reached Tokio in time for dinner, after having in six days travelled two hundred and fifty miles by a circuitous route. It may be useful to know that the journey cost us, a party of three, a trifle over £36, or £2 each per day. On arriving at the hotel we remarked that Ito was coming along with our baggage. The mention of our guide's name had a remarkable effect upon the landlord. His face lighted up with joyous recognition.

"Ito!" he explained. "Ito great friend of mine. His house burned down last night; everyting lost; his mudder burned out."

It is a long time since I have seen a man in such a state of exultation. That he should by good luck be the very first to tell Ito this great news, after a sojourn of six days out of the reach of letters or newspapers! Ito might

have gone straight home to Yokohama, and then some one else would have told him. Whilst I was wondering how I could keep this really amiable man from Ito, or at least induce him to break the news gently, the guide himself appeared. The landlord made a dash at him, and seizing him by the hand as if to congratulate him on some momentously happy event, he cried

"Ito, your house burned down last night; I got telegram."

Ito was evidently stunned at the blow thus ruthlessly dealt. It was only yesterday he had been telling me how he had bought the house just two months ago, and set his "mudder" and sister up in it. Now it was gone; and Japanese houses are never insured, for the sufficient reason that no insurance company will grant policies.

"Well," he said, after a pause, during which the landlord had been eagerly scanning his face, "it can't be helped."

This was disappointing. But the landlord had other shots in his locker.

"Everyting burnt up," he cried.

Well," said Ito, with a brave little smile, "it can't be helped."

Things were looking hopeless. Now was the time to bring up all reserves.

"And your mudder burned out!" he roared, greedily devouring Ito's expression with his eyes.

Anybody hurt?"

"No," said the landlord, a little chapfallen.

"Well, it can't be helped," said Ito, forlornly going back to his formula.

After this the landlord retired utterly routed. Never had he had such a welcome home for a traveller, and Ito had taken it all as calmly as if it was a match that had been burned.

The fire was a very serious one to others besides Ito. It began about eleven o'clock at night at the top of the Japanese street in Yokohama already described. The fire god was promptly brought out and placed between the boundary of the fire and the houses yet untouched. But the flames laughed him to scorn, would even have burned him too, had he not from time to time been moved higher up to establish a fresh boundary. Water was scarcely of any more avail. Japanese houses are made of wood and paper, the materials in ordinary use in Western lands for kindling a fire. Once aflame the fire goes as far as the wind will carry it, and by one o'clock in the morning four hundred and sixty houses were

burned to the ground, and their inmates homeless.

I saw a letter written by a native clerk engaged in one of the European houses. It is a gem of epistolary correspondence. It ran thus:

"MY DEAR TALBOT,

"November 7, 1883.

"DEAR SIR,-Will you please give me a only one day Holddy-becouse I am very sorry my house set in fire at this early morning therefore I most look after my family and Co.

"YOUR UP STAIR BOY."

We had arranged to go to the theatre in the evening, but in view of Ito's affliction, I suggested that the visit should be postponed. Ito, however, with the philosophy that had actuated him on first hearing the news declined to be let off.

"I can't do no good now," he said. "It will be all the same if I go down to Yokohama by the last train."

So it was settled, to my permanent satisfaction, for it happened that on this particular night we saw the Japanese drama at its best, located in a handsome building, presented by

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a crack company, and the piece chancing to be one of the most characteristic and widely popular.

The theatre at Tokio is a new one of immense size, and was on the night of our visit densely crowded, notwithstanding the fact that the prices are, by comparison with English theatres, surprisingly high. But then, as Ito observed, you can stay all day if you like. Theatre-going in Japan is a serious social undertaking. The doors open early in the morning, and the performance is not over till ten o'clock at night. Thus, when the Japanese go to the theatre, they literally make a day of it.

There is in connection with the theatre at Tokio a tea-house, where refreshments are obtainable at reasonable prices. This is within the building, and people who have once obtained entrance are permitted freely to pass from the theatre to the tea-room. But there must arise occasions when, in the course of the day, there comes to persons a desire to leave the theatre. The head of the family may want to go home to look through his correspondence, or to transact an hour's business, by way of foil to the exciting pleasure of the drama. In such case a device is brought into use worthy the attention of