Coffee and cigar
Coffee and cigar
A Visitor
When a visitor calls, even the cushion is brought from the anteroom for him to sit on, and then a small cup of tea set before him and a brazier if it is cold and if warm, a tabako-bon. The cushion is round or square; that for summer is made of matting, hide, or a thin wadding of cotton in a cover of hempen cloth, while for winter use the wadding is much thicker and the cover is silk or cotton. It is about sixteen inches at the side if square. The brazier is of various shapes and makes. It may be a wooden box with an earthenware case inside or with a false bottom of copper, or it may be a glazed earthenware case alone; the wooden box may be plain with two holes for handles, or it may be elaborately latticed; and sometimes a brazier is made of the trunk of a tree cut with the outside rough-hewn or only barked and highly polished. The tabako-bon, or “tobacco-tray,” is a small open square or oblong box of sandal-wood or other hard wood, which holds a small china or metal pan, three-quarters full of ashes, with a few tiny pieces of live charcoal in the middle to light a pipe with, and beside it a small bamboo tube with a knot at the bottom for receiving tobacco-ashes.