"However, I didn't come here to talk geisha. If you want me to show you the ropes as a newspaperman, I'm going now to the Foreign Office, and you had better come along."
The first glimpse of the Foreign Office attracted Kent--the great wall, with white mortar forming big lozenges, the only glimpse of typical Japan in the vicinity where great red brick buildings, the Navy Department, the courts, and, gray and forbidding, imposing even while its walls were crumbling, the Russian Embassy, formed the nucleus of official Japan. But once inside the iron grilled gate, the Foreign Office buildings were unimpressive, tediously modern. They did not even go to the main structure, but went to the right into a long, drab edifice.
"This will be one of your main points in your work," said Kittrick, as they waited while the solemn old commissionaire shuffled upstairs to announce them. "This is the information bureau of the Foreign Office, the main function of which is to see that foreign correspondents are kept satisfied with as little information as possible. We are now about to see the head oracle, Mr. Kubota. He was in London and Washington for years, and Japanese officialdom speaks highly of his abilities. He has to be quite a diplomat, you know, to answer a great many questions and still give out next to no information, anyway."
The commissionaire appeared and ushered them into Kubota's office, a large, simply furnished room. A middle-aged, pleasant-faced man, immaculate in frock coat, rose to greet them. His English was perfect. He was courteously cordial. One liked him instinctively. They chatted awhile about Kent's plans, how he liked Japan, the usual trivialities. "I hope you will come here often. We shall all be glad to be of every service possible to you, I and my assistants."
He called over a young man who had been sitting in the background. "My chief assistant, Mr. Kikuchi," he introduced. Kikuchi, more interesting at first sight than his chief, was a typical young aristocrat, in rich silk kimono, with long, sensitive fingers, urbanely smiling. Kent learned later on that he was regarded as one of the rising men in the Foreign Office, a man with brains as well as prestige. His father, Viscount Kikuchi, was considered, in the most intimately informed circles, to be the leading mind of the Privy Council.