After a little hesitation, Bunkichi drew nearer to the master. “Pray, master, sell her to me,” said he; “I am again going out on a trading battle.”
Then the master understood his real intention and said: “Well, if you are so minded, you may not be afraid of this storm; but the Tenjin-maru is in any case a dangerous ship for this weather; so I will lend you one which is more seaworthy.”
“No, thank you, sir; I have no wish to borrow,” replied the lad. “This undertaking is a matter of fate. If I am wrecked on the way out I cannot give you your ship back again; so I shall not borrow things of others, for I wish to do everything on my own capital.”
The master knew the boy’s nature and made no further objection, but said: “Very well, I will sell her to you. You will surely succeed. Come back again laden with treasure!”
Chocho, the master’s daughter, who was now sixteen years of age, overheard the conversation between the two and was much surprised, and expressed her anxiety as well as her sorrow in her face, and said: “Does Bunkichi go to Yedo in this storm?” The mother, too, longed to stop him, but could not well interfere, because her husband had already yielded his sanction to the boy’s scheme. She only said, loud enough to be heard by both, as she answered her daughter: “Yes, Cho, it is most dangerous to go out to sea in this great wind and storm!” To which the girl responded: “Yes, mother!”
Bunkichi, having paid the price of the Tenjin-maru to his master, went to the wholesale stores which were best known to him and bought up their oranges. The merchants, as they were sore oppressed by the rotting of the fruit, were in the state of “panting blue breath,” as they say. Bunkichi, in a somewhat off-hand manner, said to one of them: “Do the oranges rot every day?”
“Yes, every day we are much troubled about it; they rot away continually. Already half of the stock we have is spoiled; if it goes on at this rate, within another ten days our whole stock will be lost.”
Whereupon the lad said: “Are you really prepared to sell them at whatever price you can get for them?”
“Oh, yes, gladly; for how much better would it be to sell even at a loss than to pay for throwing the rotten stuff away!”
To which Bunkichi answered: “If that is the case, I will buy from you at sixteen mon per box as much stock as you have.”