This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
78
MY JAPANESE WIFE.

do, or rather no hair which wants doing, her elaborate coiffure being a permanent erection for some considerable time. She tells me that it took “nearly a large day to do it,” and I quite believe her; it is such a wonderful erection.

All is so delightfully simple. She puts on her little patches of rouge—with a less reckless hand, in deference to my opinions on the subject—in a trice, puffs some white powder upon her cheeks and charmingly impudent nose, reddens her lips with the certitude of a practised hand, slips into her gown of flowered silk, and with a pretty little pleading moue entreats me to tie the enormous bow of her brilliantly coloured obi; and hey, presto! as the conjurer says, almost in less time than it takes a Western woman to put on her bonnet, Mousmé’s toilet is complete, and she is ready for our make-believe playing at breakfast.

She eats her sugared plums with dainty