[Illustration: A JAPANESE AT HIS TOILET FOR A VISIT OF CEREMONY.]
"Now, mother, this letter is addressed to you, but it is intended for everybody; and I know you'll read it to everybody, and have it handed round, so that all can know where I am and what I have told you about Japan. When I don't write to each one of you, I know you will understand why it is,--because I am so busy, and trying to learn all I can. Give my love to each and every one in the family, and tell Mary she knows somebody outside of it that wants a share. Tell her I often think of the morning we left, and how a handkerchief waved from the railway station when we came away. And tell Mary, too, that I haven't yet opened her list of things I am to get for her; but I haven't forgotten it, and have it all safe and right. There are lots of pretty things to buy here; and if she has made a full catalogue of Japanese curiosities, she has given me enough to do for the present--and the presents.
"Good-night, dear mother, and look for another letter by the next mail.
Fred finished his letter almost at the same moment that Frank affixed the signature to his own. By the time they were through it was late in the evening, and the hour for retiring to bed. Their sleeping-places were exactly such as they might have found in any American hotel, and they longed for a view of a Japanese bed. Frank was inclined to ask Doctor Bronson to describe one to them, but Fred thought it would be time enough when they went into the interior of the country and saw one.
They were up early the next morning, but not as early as the Japanese.
"I tell you what," said Frank, "I have made a discovery."
"I have been thinking of something to introduce into the United States, and make everybody get up early in the morning."
"Yes. Something that interested us yesterday when we saw it."
"Well, we saw so many things that I couldn't begin to guess in half an hour. What was it?"
"You mean those little things the Japanese sleep on?"
"Yes; they are so uncomfortable that we couldn't use them with any sort of pleasure. Nobody would want to lie in bed after he had waked up, if he had such a pillow under his head. He would be out in a minute, and wouldn't think of turning over for another doze.