[The Soul of the Far East by Percival Lowell]@TWC D-Link bookThe Soul of the Far East CHAPTER 4 10/43
I translate it literally, simply prefacing that every tea-house girl, usually in the first blush of youth, is generically addressed as "elder sister,"-- another honorific, at least so considered in Japan. You clap your hands.
(Enter tea-house maiden.) You.
Hai, elder sister, augustly exists there sugar? The T.H.M.
The honorable sugar, augustly is it? You.
So, augustly. The T.H.M.He (indescribable expression of assent). (Exit tea-house maiden to fetch the sugar.) Now, the "augustlies" go almost without saying, but why is the sugar honorable? Simply because it is eventually going to be offered to you. But she would have spoken of it by precisely the same respectful title, if she had been obliged to inform you that there was none, in which case it never could have become yours.
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