THREE:IIIConversation ran on various topics for an hour or more, and then Doctor Bronson announced that he would go out for a while, and hoped to give them some interesting information on his return. The boys busied themselves with their journals, and in this way a couple of hours slipped along without their suspecting how rapidly the time was flying. They were still occupied when the Doctor returned.
THREE:
THREE:"They take the moxa for nearly everything, real or imaginary. Sometimes they have the advice of a doctor, but oftener they go to a priest, who makes a mark on them where the burn is to be applied; then they go to a man who sells the burning material, and he puts it on as a druggist with us would fill up a prescription."BARRACOONS AT MACAO. BARRACOONS AT MACAO.
TWO:As the first note was sounded on the bell, the gangway plank was drawn in. "One," "two," "three," "four," "five," "six," "seven," "eight," rang out from the sonorous metal.In the flower-show and among the tea-booths the party remained at their leisure until it was time to think of going away from Asakusa and seeing something else. As they came out of the temple grounds they met a wedding party going in, and a few paces farther on they encountered a christening party proceeding in the same direction. The wedding procession consisted of three persons, and the other of four; but the principal member of the latter group was so young that he was carried in the arms of one of his companions, and had very little to say of the performances in which he was to take a prominent part. Frank observed that he did not cry, as any well-regulated baby would have done in America, and remarked upon the oddity of the circumstance. The Doctor informed him that it was not the fashion for babies to cry in Japan, unless they belonged to foreign parents.
TWO:But the class to which the Paynes belonged were not really humble. They were urban in origin, and the semi-aristocratic tradition of Great Wymering was opposed to them. They had come down from the London suburbs in response to advertisements of factory sites, and their enterprise had been amazing. Within a few years Great Wymering had ceased to be a pleasing country town, with historic associations dating back to the first Roman occupation; it was merely known to travellers on the South-Eastern and Chatham railway as the place where Payne's Dog Biscuits were manufactured.