Ushi wasn't standing. He was sitting, dejectedly, on the dashboard of his rikisha, waiting for someone to come along on whom he could spring his card—that "nefarious" card that cut the rates, and as he saw me draw up seated in Yamamoto's rikisha—Yamamoto, favored of fortune, taking off his fare, Ushi cast a reproachful glance on me.
"Ushi, what for you mope? Didn't I make a deal with you last night to be my rikisha boy today? Hitch on behind and push, Ushi—what difference if you pull or push? That yen is yours when night shall come."
Ushi caught on—behind. He left his rikisha standing by the wall. There's some class to serve a man who'll hire a rikisha boy to push as well as one to pull in Kioto, and with reckless abandon I had decided to blow myself for a whole dollar and twenty-five cents for ten hours' horse and carriage hire that day, just because Ushi didn't have a family.
If Ushi hadn't lost his wife, and if he had had a pickaninny or two, I'd got off for fifty cents and could have given my story the twist I'd planned for it.
"Ushi, what for you mope? Didn't I make a deal with you last night to be my rikisha boy today? Hitch on behind and push, Ushi"
With reckless abandon I had decided to blow myself for a whole dollar and twenty-five cents for ten hours' horse and carriage hire