However, anything to oblige you." He guesses at the first words what I require from him.
"Of course," he replies, "we shall see about it at once.

In a week's time, as it happens, a family from Simonoseki, in which there are two charming daughters, will be here!" "What! in a week! You don't know me, Monsieur Kangourou! No, no, either now, to-morrow, or not at all." Again a hissing bow, and Kangourou-San, understanding my agitation, begins to pass in feverish review all the young persons at his disposal in Nagasaki.
"Let us see--there was Mademoiselle Oeillet.

What a pity that you did not speak a few days sooner! So pretty! So clever at playing the guitar! It is an irreparable misfortune; she was engaged only yesterday by a Russian officer.
"Ah! Mademoiselle Abricot!--Would she suit you, Mademoiselle Abricot?
She is the daughter of a wealthy China merchant in the Decima Bazaar, a person of the highest merit; but she would be very dear: her parents, who think a great deal of her, will not let her go under a hundred yen--[A yen is equal to four shillings.]--a month.

She is very accomplished, thoroughly understands commercial writing, and has at her fingers'-ends more than two thousand characters of learned writing.

In a poetical competition she gained the first prize with a sonnet composed in praise of 'the blossoms of the blackthorn hedges seen in the dew of early morning.' Only, she is not very pretty: one of her eyes is smaller than the other, and she has a hole in her cheek, resulting from an illness of her childhood." "Oh, no! on no account that one! Let us seek among a less distinguished class of young persons, but without scars.