the circumspect burning of its charcoals under the ashes silken-soft and grey. This is the Imperial Kingdom, where the spirit of class distinction reigns over even the hibachis; there are several kinds of them, aristocratic or plebeian. I always feel a pity for the fire-box called Nagahibachi, or long fire-box, which is ruled out from the drawing-room only from the fault of being too large. Bigness here is often regarded as inartistic. We are pleased to admire a dwarfed tree on the holy place of the tokonoma.
However, this Nagahibachi, exiled to the sitting-room, where the lady of the house takes her queen's seat, would be one’s sweetest memory; my reminiscence of my childhood days, perhaps like any other man’s, always begins with it. I cannot forget the patient look of dear mother, who customarily sat by it; 1 often thought there was no greater confidante for her than that fire-box, one foot by two feet, who laughed and again cried with her in each change of her moods. Although every hibachi is feminine, that Nagahibachi is particularly so, with its own special tact of
