'
'A Japanese god?' I asked.
'Yes, nothing artistic is quite right now unless it has a savour of
blue mould or Japan. Wonderful people, the Japanese, to have
discovered the Jolly Hotei. And here is Hotei's wife, the
goddess-queen Yoka herself--the real masquerader behind that mystic
veil which has so enveloped and bemuddled the mind of poor
Wilderspin. She is to figure in the first number of _The
Caricaturist_.'
He pointed to an object I had only partially observed: a broad-faced
burly woman, of about forty-five years of age, in an eccentric dress
of Japanese silks, standing on the model-throne between two lay
figures. 'Good heavens!' I exclaimed, 'why, she's alive.'
'An' kickin', sir,' said a voice that was at once strident and
unctuous. Owing to the almond shape of her sparkling black eyes and
the flatness of her nose, the bridge of which had been broken (most
likely in childhood), she looked absurdly like a Japanese woman, save
that upon her quaintly-cut mouth, curving slightly upwards horse-shoe
fashion, there was that twitter of humorous alertness which is
perhaps rarely seen in perfection except among the lower orders,
Celtic or Saxon, of London.
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