I should say women are very particular on many things.
When I was meditating with the letter flapping in my hand on the porch, the old lady opened the sliding partition and brought in my supper.
“Still poring over the letter? Must be a very long one, I imagine,” she said.
“Yes, this is an important letter, so I’m reading it with the wind blowing it about,” I replied—the reply which was nonsense even for myself,—and I sat down for supper. I looked in the dish on the tray, and saw the same old sweet potatoes again to-night. This new boarding house was more polite and considerate and refined than the Ikagins, but the grub was too poor stuff and that was one drawback. It was sweet potato yesterday, so it was the day before yesterday, and here it is again to-night. True, I declared myself very fond of sweet potatoes, but if I am fed with sweet potatoes with such insistency, I may soon have to quit this dear old world. I can’t be laughing at Hubbard Squash; I shall become Sweet Potato myself before long. If it were Kiyo she would surely serve me with my favorite sliced tunny or fried kamaboko, but nothing doing with a tight, poor samurai. It seems best that I live with Kiyo. If I have to stay long in the school, I believe I would call her from Tokyo. Don’t eat tempura, don’t eat dango, and then get turned yellow by feeding on sweet potatoes only, in the boarding house. That’s for an educator, and his place is really a hard one. I think even the priests of the Zen sect are enjoying better feed. I cleaned up the sweet potatoes, then took out two raw eggs from the drawer of my desk, broke them on the edge of the rice bowl, to tide it over. I have to get nourishment by eating raw eggs or something, or how can I stand the teaching of twenty one hours a week?
I was late for my bath to-day on account of the letter from Kiyo. But I would not like to drop off a single day since I had been there everyday. I thought I would take a train to-day, and coming to the station with the same old red towel dangling out of my hand, I found the train had just left two or three minutes ago, and had to wait for some time. While I was smoking a cigarette on a bench, my friend Hubbard Squash happened to come in. Since I heard the story about him from the old lady my sympathy for him had become far greater than ever. His reserve always appeared to me pathetic. It was no longer a case of merely pathetic; more than that. I was wishing to get his salary doubled, if possible, and have him marry Miss Toyama and send them to Tokyo for about one month on a pleasure trip. Seeing him, therefore, I motioned him to a seat beside me, addressing him cheerfully:
“Hello[H], going to bath? Come and sit down here.”
Hubbard Squash, appearing much awe-struck, said; “Don’t mind me, Sir,” and whether out of polite reluctance or I don’t know what, remained standing.
“You have to wait for a little while before the next train starts; sit down; you’ll be tired,” I persuaded him again. In fact, I was so sympathetic for him that I wished to have him sit down by me somehow. Then with a “Thank you, Sir,” he at last sat down. A fellow like Clown, always fresh, butts in where he is not wanted; or like Porcupine swaggers about with a face which says “Japan would be hard up without me,” or like Red Shirt, self-satisfied in the belief of being the wholesaler of gallantry and of cosmetics. Or like Badger who appears to say; “If ‘Education’ were alive and put on a frockcoat, it would look like me.” One and all in one way or other have bravado, but I have never seen any one like this Hubbard Squash, so quiet and resigned, like a doll taken for a ransom. His face is rather swollen but for the Madonna to cast off such a splendid fellow and give preference to Red Shirt, was frivolous beyond my understanding. Put how many dozens of Red Shirt you like together, it will not make one husband of stuff to beat Hubbard Squash.
“Is anything wrong with you? You look quite fatigued,” I asked.
“No, I have no particular ailments…….”