"Mr. Fujinami Gennosuké, the father of Mr. Fujinami Gentaro," announced Ito. "He has retired from life. He wishes to drink wine with you. Please wash your cup and give it to him."
There was a kind of finger-bowl standing in front of Geoffrey, which he had imagined might be a spittoon. He was directed to rinse his cup in this vessel, and to hand it to the old gentleman. Mr. Fujinami Gennosuké received it in both hands as if it had been a sacrament. The attendant _geisha_ poured out a little of the greenish liquid, which was drunk with much hissing and sucking. Then followed another obeisance; the cup was returned, and the old gentleman retired.
He was succeeded by Mr. Fujinami Gentaro himself, with whom the same ceremony of the _saké_ drinking was repeated; and then all the family passed by, one after another, each taking the cup and drinking. It was like a visiting figure in the lancers' quadrille.
As each relative bent and bowed, Ito announced his name and quality. These names seemed all alike, alike as their faces and as their garments were. Geoffrey could only remember vaguely that he had been introduced to a Member of Parliament, a gross man with a terrible wen like an apple under his ear, and to two army officers, tall clean-looking men, who pleased him more than the others. There were several Government functionaries; but the majority were business men. Geoffrey could only distinguish for certain his host and his host's father.
"They look just like two old vultures," he thought.
Then there was Mr. Fujinami Takeshi, the son of the host and the hope of the family, a livid youth with a thin moustache and unhealthy marks on his face like raspberries under the skin.
Still the _geisha_ kept bringing more and more food in a desultory way quite unlike our system of fixed and regular courses. Still Ito kept pressing Geoffrey to eat, while at the same time apologizing for the quality of the food with exasperating repetition. Geoffrey had fallen into the error of thinking that the fish and its accompanying dishes which had been laid before him at first comprised the whole of the repast. He had polished them off with gusto; and had then discovered to his alarm that they were merely _hors d'oeuvres_. Nor did he observe until too late how little the other guests were eating. There was no discourtesy apparently in leaving the whole of a dish untasted, or in merely picking at it from time to time. Rudeness consisted in refusing any dish.