of old-time Athens than to the Imperial Peripatetics 
of the Daily Telegraph and Mr. Raven-Hill, her 
looks of fire turned my friend’s silky and insipid 
moustache into a veritable Burning Bush.  But 
puppy endearments are of little interest to one who 
has just done his duty by No. 9 in distant Yoshi-
wara ; so turned to the conversation of our dirty old 
Irish hostess, who, being drunk, grew more so, 
and exceedingly entertaining. 
Of the central forces which sway mankind, her 
knowledge was more comprehensive than conven-
tional.  For thirty years she had earned her bread 
in the capacity of a Japanese Mrs. Warren ; but 
having played with fire in many lands, the 
knowledge she had of her own subject, based on 
indefatigable personal research, was as accurate 
in detail as it was cosmopolitan in character.  
Yet she had not lost her ideals ; she was a devout 
Catholic, and her opinion of the human under-
standing, despite her virginal innocence of Greek, 
was identical with that of Mr. Locke. 
On occasions I am as sensitive to inexplicable 
 
iii