Page:Modern Japanese Stories.pdf/41

It had just stopped raining when Councillor Watanabé got off the tram in front of the Kabuki Playhouse. Carefully avoiding the puddles, he hurried through the Kobiki District in the direction of the Department of Communications. Surely that restaurant was somewhere around here, he thought as he strode along the canal; he remembered having noticed the sign-board on one of these corners.

The streets were fairly empty. He passed a group of young men in Western clothes. They were talking noisily and looked as if they had all just left their office. Then a girl in a kimono and a gaily-coloured sash hurried by almost bumping into him. She was probably a waitress from some local tea-house, he thought. A rickshaw with its hood up passed him from behind.

Finally he caught sight of a small sign-board with the inscription written horizontally in the Western style: Seiyōken Hotel. The front of the building facing the canal was covered with scaffolding. The side-entrance was on a small street. There were two oblique flights of stairs outside the restaurant forming a sort of truncated triangle. At the head of each staircase was a