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Imperial Hotels, Ltd. Tokio.

Imperial Hotel and Villa.

May 30th, 1907.

My dear Colonel,
I have your kind cablegram telling me of having purchased the Corean pottery collection for three thousand dollars -(a price far below what I expected to pay, as similar single specimens here fetch hundreds and some over a thousand dollars. I had expected to pay five thousand dollars, the price named in one of the letters. But, I am simply again reminded of your old time habit of always getting rock bottom prices). How shall I thank you! I also have the cablegrams telling me of the 10,000 draft in the mail and of ten thousand dollars cabled. Again many thanks! The draft now in transit will reach me amply as early as the 15,000 received by wire took care of pressing needs. Since my arrival here I have kept away from the shops and have avoided association with the dealers to an extent which has caused very much bitter feeling against me, even in the minds of those whom for years I have been on rather intimate terms, viz: - the Yamanakas, Ushikubu, the Kioto Matsuki, Kobayashi, Ekeda and others. This course I found necessary in order to see the many private collections to which they are not admitted and also to protect myself against contemplated conspiracies which I quickly discovered after my landing at Kobe were aimed in a big way, and most devilish, at my purse. Depletion of my purse as contemplated by the friends, was bad enough, but they had other ambitions which to me and them were more important. 

I was determined to whip them in all of their long-laid plans and also to secure, at least, a few choice objects of art without their assistance. The latter acquisition looked pretty hopeless but without causing me any alarm up to the day I wired asking the cable transfer of $10,000. That morning the doors of one of the temples here were thrown open to me and I was allowed to make selections from their treasures, but for spot cash only. I looked the collection through hastily and found besides much rubbish, enough good to make me risk the ten thousand first wired for, before I actually bought a piece. I realized the hazard to both my purse and reputation as a critic, (the right of the priests to sell being made clear to me there was no risk of confiscation by higher authorities of anything I might buy) which would naturally follow my going into such a game without an adviser like Prof. Fenellosa behind my back. However, I believed the game