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He was not surprised, as he turned the corner of the veranda, to find Imura Kisaburo Hinamoto sitting with his feet on the railing, a cigarette in his mouth, and a volume, issued by the United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, on his knee. But as the servant saw the master he rose promptly to his feet, extinguished the cigarette with his fingers, and stood in an attitude of extreme respect.
This was the most perfect specimen of the bluff, hearty, breezy, almost ingenuous Westerner that Gwynne had encountered. The judge, who had been relieved of his hat and overcoat by the admirable Imura, advanced with both hands outstretched, and Gwynne could do no less than surrender his, although he had never fancied any one less.
Three days of floundering through the mud between Lumalitas and Rosewater exhausted Gwynne's patience, and he engaged a furnished suite of rooms on Main Street, moved in his law library, Imura Kisaburo Hinomoto, and several easy-chairs, invested in a red wall-paper for his sitting-room, and was immediately so comfortable, and so relieved to be rid of his dripping sighing trees and flooded valley, that he was almost happy.
The idea of three hours on the water instead of one and a half on a slow and dirty train so exhilarated him that he forgot his self-communings and ordered the buggy at once. It was but half-past five. They would catch the tide; nor did the train leave until half-past eight. He presented Imura Kisaburo Hinamoto with a box of cigarettes, gave him the run of the library, and drove off whistling.
Gwynne smiled at the form of address and the expressions of concern in his welfare; but he scowled twice over the admonition to be plastic and American. "I'll be what I damn please," he announced, aloud, much to the surprise of Imura Kisaburo Hinomoto who entered at the moment with his shaving water.
It was not often that the cool even tones of Imura Kisabura Hinomoto fluctuated, but Gwynne detected a faint accent of respect. Somewhat surprised himself, he glanced at the card. It bore the name of one of the judges of one of the benches provided for by the constitutions of both nation and State.
The news came just in time to prevent the murder of Imura by Carlos, for not admitting that we had had the greatest earthquake in the history of the world. It was the first symptom of patriotic fire I ever saw in Imura, but he stoutly maintained that in the matter of earthquakes Japan could do as well as California."
But it is true that in my few unoccupied intervals as, for instance, when Imura Kisaburo Hinamoto is shaving me, and I have, by an excess of politeness, made sure that he will not cut my throat I have had visions of you on that ungainly pedestal with all San Francisco kneeling at the base. It is quite conceivable. I am a born leader myself. I recognize certain attributes in you.
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