LETTER XIII.—(Completed.)

Summary

I have had to do a little shopping in Hachiishi for my journey. The shop-fronts, you must understand, are all open, and at the height of the floor, about two feet from the ground, there is a broad ledge of polished wood on which you sit down. A woman everlastingly boiling water on a bronze hibachi or brazier, shifting the embers about deftly with brass tongs like chopsticks, and with a baby looking calmly over her shoulders, is the shop woman; but she remains indifferent till she imagines that you have a definite purpose of buying, when she comes forward bowing to the ground, and I politely rise and bow too. Then I or Ito ask the price of a thing, and she names it, very likely asking 4s. for what ought to sell at 6d. You say 3s., she laughs and says 3s. 6d., you say 2s., she laughs again and says 3 s., offering you the tabako-bon. Eventually the matter is compromised by your giving her 1s., at which she appears quite delighted. With a profusion of bows and “sayo naras” on each side, you go away with the pleasant feeling of having given an industrious woman twice as much as the thing was worth to her, and less than what it is worth to you!

Between your offers the saleswoman makes great use of the soroban, a frame enclosing some rows of balls moving on thick wires, which is used in all business transactions in Japan, and its use is such a habit, that a Japanese cannot add two and two together without it.