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Il6 THE WONDERFUL CITY OF TOKIO.
" Show my honorable visitors how rapidly you can split
this."
The man bowed, squatted before them, took one of the
sticks in his left hand, and grasping a chopping-knife in his
right, drove it into the upper end of the section of bamboo,
splitting it as far as the joint,
he then worked the stick round
in his hand, as he did so repeating his cuts until it was severed
into a bunch of splints.
Another artizan seized the fan-stick, and, drilling a hole
just below the point, inserted a piece of bamboo, shaped like a
bow, tapering at both ends.
" "
Now," said their host, please come with me into the
next apartment."
As the visitors passed through a little covered veranda, they
saw Tonosuke's wife fixing a piece of paper to one of the posts,
while his son was shouting to some ants that were crawling
along the board.
boy
'
f " What are you doing? inquired
"
Sallie, and why is your
so excited? "
"I am putting up this are yoke" (ant-charm), she quietly
replied, smiling as she spoke.
"Ant-charm! " ejaculated Fitz, advancing and reading the
inscription on the paper:
^ *
Ichi uin maye^jiu roku mon '
(from
each traveller sixteen cash). What does that do to the
ants ? "
The woman simpered, and her son bashfully hid himself
behind a flower-pot; so the fan-maker came to their assistance
and said, " Everybody knows the ant is a hard-working, thrifty
insect that dislikes to put out its money. That demand for a
toll of sixteen cash prevents them from going any further."
"How do the ants know what it means? They cannot
read," bluntly demanded the irrepressible.