It would be a good idea to become acquainted with the capitalistic side of the story. He began a round of calls on the money kings, captains of industry, the owners of names which recurred⁴ constantly in the news of economic events. For days he wandered about in the lairs⁵ of plutocracy⁶, sent his card in to dozens of men, wasted hours in bleak⁷ waiting rooms with their scant⁸ furnishing of variegated⁹ chairs and tables, dusty curtains and innumerable ash trays, smoked idly while hundreds of clerks ran about, like bees in huge hives, or sat smoking and drinking tea. But the great men were always out of the city, or sick, or attending funerals of relatives. There was courtesy everywhere. Would he not see such and such a secretary or third vice-president instead? When he insisted, they shook their heads, a bit surprised at the effrontery¹⁰ of this stranger who thought that he might thus easily gain speech with the great ones. They were amusingly absurd, these foreigners, seemed to be their thought. It was as if he had marched into Buckingham Palace and demanded an interview with King George. He[Pg 134] knew that he could probably make his way into even these hallowed sanctums, should he obtain letters of introduction from the Foreign Office, which was always most obliging in such matters. He know that letters of introduction held an exaggerated value, were regarded as almost indispensable by the Japanese themselves. But they aroused his

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