the worst they had ever had, Bob insisted. Kohana-San (perhaps it is unnecessary to explain) quite agreed with him; she always did this, and still—curiously enough—always had her own way.
First they went to Mrs. Rawlins and begged for Bob's release. This she affectionately but firmly refused. Bob, she said, was a man, and he must learn the duties of a man, and among those of an American gentleman was the ability to make a speech. She was then petitioned to provide the speech. This she also declined to do. American gentlemen, she said, must be able to prepare their own speeches. Whereupon Bob and Kohana-San went for a walk among the tombs in Shiba.
"I say, Kohana-San, I shall have to disappear," said Bob, with desperate finality. "That 's what everybody does who gets into a hole."
If Bob meant this humorously, considering their whereabouts, it passed quite unnoticed.
Perhaps, however, it spurred Kohana-San to extraordinary effort. The next day she appeared with the speech of one Senator Gopher, clipped from a Chinese newspaper.
