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46
THE WONDERFUL CITY OF TOKIO.
The Professor smiled and rewarded the man, who, once
more rapping the table, bowed repeatedly, and said:
"Honorable sirs, perhaps you would like to hear a story of
the god-fox?"
" We would," frankly answered Fitz, speaking for the
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party. Tell us something funny. We don't particularly admire
tales of hara-kiri"
The koshaku-shi assumed a comical air, rapped on the
table, and said:
" In the little village of Oji, lived -a man who did not be-
lieve in the benevolent Inari (the god of rice) and went about
ridiculing him to his neighbors, saying:
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The worship of such a god is foolishness, and as to his
attendants, the foxes, you are not going
they can assume human shapes,
to make me believe
it is all nonsense. Such
stories may serve to scare old women, but they do not frighten
me.'
" One day, when he was working at his trade of making
gold ornaments for the hilts of swords, a beautiful lady came
to his shop and said:
'My husband desires to see some of your exquisite menuki?
"The man, flattered by her words, packed his treasures in
a box and followed his visitor to a little hill near the Oto-
nashi-gawa, where he saw a magnificent palace surrounded by
rice fields. The lady took the package from him and said:
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Wait till T go indoors and show these to my husband."
"
She then threw the box into the building, when, behold,
in an instant, the mansion tumbled to pieces and resolved itself
into a ruined well.
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The man gazed about him in a bewildered manner, and,
falling upon his knees, cried: