Kent drifted into his daily routine quickly and easily. His Japanese clerk watched the papers for him, read over the headlines, and translated into queer, but fairly understandable English the articles which Kent called for. He had made friends with several Japanese newspapermen, keen, elderly men, always pleasantly ready to comment on and to amplify¹ the news of the day, popular tendencies and drift of thought, and who often took pains to keep him informed of the spot news. Then he visited the departments, Foreign Office, Home Office, War and Navy departments, a rather tedious and not very remunerative² procedure, interviewing second-rank officials, laboriously³ extracting formal information, always meeting the unfailing courtesy and polite blankness which makes the Japanese the hardest men to interview in the world. The highest officials, Ministers, for instance, might as a rule be interviewed only by submission⁴ of written questions. It seemed as if the human element, the touch of man to man, was constantly deliberately⁵ shrouded⁶ in an impenetrable veil of bureaucratic⁷ formalism. Was it instinctive⁸ passion for secrecy⁹, suspicion of the foreigner in general, or merely the deadening influence of worship of official form? He could not make up his mind, but he wished it were possible to talk frankly¹⁰ and openly, with return in openness and frankness, and not always under the peculiar¹¹ feeling of restraint, of necessity of being constantly en guard, as if one were fencing with an

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