“What’ll we do with these here vermin?” asked the leader of the farmers.
“I have granted that they go free,” said Motu, “but they are forever banished from Japan.”
“Um....” said the farmer. “So far’s you go, that’s all right. What they done to you you can overlook if you want to. But so far as these kids go, it’s a different thing. These Japanese men have bothered, and, so far’s I kin see, tried actually to harm, these American boys. Wa-al, us men don’t stand by to see leetle fellers nor wimmin—nor anybody harmed if we can help it. Seems like we’re bound to do somethin’.”
Motu bowed. “The matter is in your hands,” he said. There was a twinkle in his eye, too.
The farmers talked together a minute. Then they carried their prisoners out on our dock. One farmer got ahold of the head and one of the feet of The Man. “One, two, three,” called out the leader, and The Man went whirling through the air, head over heels, till he splashed down in the lake. Right after him came one of his men. As fast as one crawled back on to the dock the farmers would jerk him up and duck him again. I laughed till I almost busted my belt. Even the Japanese minister was smiling a little.
“That’s enough,” said the farmers’ leader in a few minutes. “Now turn ’em loose—after ’em! Chase ’em! Don’t forgit you’ve got toes to your boots!”
Off scooted the Japanese—pretty nearly drowned, I expect—and right on their heels swooped the farmers. They didn’t forget the toes on their boots, either. Every once in a while one of them would swing up his leg and catch a Japanese right where his pants were tight—and that Japanese would pretty nearly double the distance he was planning on for the next jump. We watched them, our sides aching so we didn’t dare laugh again, until they disappeared.
“American justice,” said the count, his eyes all twinkly. “We do it differently in Japan—but maybe we could learn from you.... It has the advantage of being sudden.”
We got in the big automobile and went to the count’s summer home and stayed there three weeks. Then we had to go home, and so did Motu. We felt pretty bad when we said good-by to him, for, after all, we were just boys and he was a prince away off in Japan, so we wouldn’t be likely ever to see him again.
But he said he would see us and would write to us. “Three times a year I shall write until the last year of your lives and mine. Nor must our hearts be sad at this parting, for fear we not meet again, for I, Motu, promise you we shall meet, and here is my hand on it.”