a very pious man, and went every day to the shrine of Kasuga, near that city, to pay his devotions. One day, as he went to make his usual morning prayer, he met a white-haired man in the garb of a Shinto priest, who told him that on his way home he would find a reward of his piety at the great Torii (Shinto archway) leading to the shrine. He accordingly found there a purse of fifty gold kobans. He took it home, intending to advertise it, and so give the loser an opportunity of making a claim. Meanwhile Kurosuke heard a sound of great lamentation which proceeded from the house of a neighbour. It appeared, on inquiry, that the father of the family had gone security for a friend who had absconded, leaving him liable for a sum of one hundred rios. It was totally impossible for him to raise this amount. The creditor offered to take thirty, but even this sum was far beyond his means. His daughter (the experienced reader of Japanese novels knows what is coming) then offered to let herself be sold to a Kuruwa in order to provide the needful money, and an establishment of this kind, far away in Chikuzen, was selected, so as to lessen the family disgrace as much as possible. It was the lamentation at her approaching departure which had drawn Kurosuke's attention. He concluded that with the gift of the gods he could not do better than release this unhappy household from their difficulty. So he paid the thirty rios, and returning home, deposited the balance of the money in the domestic shrine and went about his business. Now his wife, of whom he had made a confidante, was a foolish woman. She took it into her head that her husband had stolen the money. Full of this idea, she must needs let their landlord know of her suspicions. And so from one to another the matter
