“Ah, I see,” he remarked, as he understood the girl’s request; “that flying bamboo thing I often see when I go out on the streets. The toy, I remember, was first made by a boy of great filial virtue in a certain country district, and even here they talk about him; it is clever of you, Bunkichi, to have learned how to make them.”
Then Sadakichi interrupted, saying: “No wonder! Why, he was the hawker of the toy; I know all about it, as I saw him selling it at Kada-no-Ura.”
“Are you, then, the inventor of the toy?” asked the master, to whom the boy at once replied in the affirmative. The master, who was more than ever struck by the boy’s character, said, “Are you, then, the same boy whom all the people talk about and praise for his devotion to his parent?”
Then the girl, who remembered what had been told her a little while before, said: “Father, his family was very poor, and, as his father was laid up on his sick-bed, he sold those dragon-flies and bought medicine or a little rice for the family. He told me so.”
As she was listening to this conversation, tears stood in the mother’s eyes, and she said: “He is really a model boy, is he not? I can’t possibly let him go to sea.”
The master, who was much of the same way of thinking as his wife, answered, “Of course, I have been persuading him to give up his idea”; and, turning to Bunkichi, said, “Yes, do give it up, my boy.”
And the girl, seemingly with the intention of inspiring the boy with dread and deterring him from his purpose, remarked solemnly, “Oh, it is dreadful to be swallowed by the shark on going to sea!”
Bunkichi, having once determined, was immovable. “Sir, trading to a merchant is the same that fighting is to a knight. It has been ever regarded honorable in a knight that he should hazard his life many a time, even in his early youth. If fate be against him, he will be put to death by his enemy. The knights of old faced the dangerous issues of life or death as often as they went out to battle. As they attained to renown by passing through these ordeals, so, too, must the merchant who aspires after a leading position not shrink from braving many dangers in his life. Sir, methinks the present is the opportunity given me to try my hand; and if fate sides with me and I succeed in killing the wanizame, in future I shall have courage to venture out on other great undertakings. If one begins to be nervous at the outset, one will go on being nervous forever; but there is no fear, I think, for a man who is ready to sacrifice even his own life.”
The master, meeting with such unflinching determination, knew not how to stop him, but said: “I must confess you have more in you than I thought. I am ashamed of myself to be thus taught by you the secret of success in trade when I should be in a position to teach you. Well said, my boy; trading is to a business man what fighting is to a knight. If you begin by being weak and timid, you will never be capable of bold enterprise. If you have a mind to divine your future by embarking on this exploit, go in for it with all your might. As to the preparations for making the straw man, as far as buying the poison is concerned, I will do it all for you. You had better go up to the mountain yonder, and ascertain the place where the shark is generally to be seen coming up to the surface. You, Sadakichi, had better take him up to the Sumiyoshi[[13]] bluff, and point him out the monster if it should come up and show itself on the surface of the water in the mouth of the harbor.”
[13]. Pronounced Soo-mee-yo’shee.