Page:Alien Souls by Achmed Abdullah (1922).djvu/191

to a major in his regiment who had spent some years as military attaché in Japan. "Positively seemed to enjoy it."

The major laughed. "Why," he replied, "you ought to feel highly honored. For that Jap paid you no end of a compliment. He has initiated you into the cha-no-yu, the honorable ceremony of tea sipping, thus showing you that he considers you his equal."

"His—his equal?" flared up the other, who, away from the laboratory, was inclined to be touchy on points of family and etiquette.

"To be sure. Didn't you say his name is Takagawa Takamori?"

"Yes."

"Well—the Takagawas are big guns in their own land. They don't make 'em any bigger. They are relatives of the Mikado, cousins to all the feudal houses of Satsuma, descendants of the gods, and what not—"

It was not altogether snobbishness which caused the German to cultivate the little Asiatic after that. He really liked him. At the end of a few weeks they were friends—strangely assorted friends who had not much in common except chemistry, who had not much to talk about except acids and poisonous gases. But they respected each other, and many a sunny afternoon found them strolling side by side through the crowded thoroughfares of Berlin, the baron swinging along with his long, even step, the tip of his scabbard smartly bumping against the asphalt, while Takagawa tripped along very much like a small, owlish child, peering up at the big man through the concave lenses of his spectacles.

Only once did the samurai mention the reasons