Hope I may be able to see you again _soon_,--4th, if possible. Love to you and all kind wishes to everybody.
DEAR McDONALD,--I mailed you this morning the raw proofs, and the _Revue des Deux Mondes_. I fear you will find the former rather faulty in their present unfinished state. But if you mount Fuji you will be a glorious critic.
I don't know how to tell you about the sense of all the pleasant episodes of yesterday, coupled with the feeling that I must have seemed too sombre toward the close,--instead of showing to you and friend Amenomori the happiest face possible. I was unusually naughty--I suppose; but I was worried a little. However, my sky is only clouded for moments--and my friends know that appearances signify nothing serious.
We had adventures at Shimbashi. I saw a well-dressed fellow getting rather close to my wife while she was counting some small change; and I pushed in between her and him--just in time; for she had found his hand on her girdle, trying to get her watch. Then I had a hand poked in my right side-pocket, and another almost simultaneously into my left breast-pocket. The men got nothing from either of us. What interested me was the style of the work. The man I noticed especially was a delicate-looking young fellow, very genteelly dressed, and wearing spectacles. He pretended to be very hot, and was holding his hat in his left hand before him, and working under it with his right. The touching of the pocket with the fingers reminded me of nothing so much as the motion of a cat's paw in playing. You know the cat does not give a single stroke, but a succession of taps, so quickly following each other that you can scarcely see how it is done. The incident was rather curious and amusing than provoking.
I fear poor Amenomori was disappointed--after all his pains about Haneda.
It was just as well that we made the trip yesterday. To-day the weather is mean,--cloudy, hot, and dusty all at the same time. Yesterday we had clear azure and gold,--and lilac-flashing dragonflies,--and a glorious moon coming home.
After seeing your shoulders I have no doubt about your finding Fuji child's-play--even Fuji could not break such a back as that; but I think that you will do well, on the climb, to eat very lightly. My experience was that the less eating the easier climbing. I took one drink on the stiff part of the climb,--contrary to the advice of the guides,--and I was sorry for it. The necessity is to reduce rather than stimulate the circulation when you get to the rarefied zone. Perhaps you will find another route better than the Gotemba route; but Amenomori would be the best adviser there.