“That’s right. What you say is right, but be good enough to take our position into consideration. If you insist on resigning, then resign, but please stay until we get some one to take your place. At any rate, think the matter over once more, please.”
The reason was so plain as to discourage any attempt to think it over, but as I took some pity on Badger whose face reddened or paled alternately as he spoke, I withdrew on the condition that I would think the matter over. I did not talk with Red Shirt. If I have to land him one, it was better, I thought, to have it bunched together and make it hot and strong.
I acquainted Porcupine with the details of my meeting with Badger. He said he had expected it to be about so, and added that the matter of resignation can be left alone without causing me any embarrassment until the time comes. So I followed his advice. Porcupine appears somewhat smarter than I, and I have decided to accept whatever advices he may give.
Porcupine finally tendered his resignation, and having bidden farewell of all the fellow teachers, went down to Minato-ya on the beach. But he stealthily returned to the hot springs town, and having rented a front room upstairs of Masuya, started peeping through the hole he fingered out in the shoji. I am the only person who knows of this. If Red Shirt comes round, it would be night anyway, and as he is liable to be seen by students or some others during the early part in the evening, it would surely be after nine. For the first two nights, I was on the watch till about 11 o’clock, but no sight of Red Shirt was seen. On the third night, I kept peeping through from nine to ten thirty, but he did not come. Nothing made me feel more like a fool than returning to the boarding house at midnight after a fruitless watch. In four or five days, our old lady began worrying about me and advised me to quit night prowling,—being married. My night prowling is different from that kind of night prowling. Mine is that of administering a deserved chastisement. But then, when no encouragement is in sight after one week, it becomes tiresome. I am quick tempered, and get at it with all zeal when my interest is aroused, and would sit up all night to work it out, but I have never shone in endurance. However loyal a member of the heavenly-chastisement league I may be, I cannot escape monotony. On the sixth night I was a little tired, and on the seventh thought I would quit. Porcupine, however, stuck to it with bull-dog tenacity. From early in the evening up to past twelve, he would glue his eye to the shoji and keep steadily watching under the gas globe of Kadoya. He would surprise me, when I come into the room, with figures showing how many patrons there were to-day, how many stop-overs and how many women, etc. Red Shirt seems never to be coming, I said, and he would fold his arms, audibly sighing, “Well, he ought to.” If Red Shirt would not come just for once, Porcupine would be deprived of the chance of handing out a deserved and just punishment.
I left my boarding house about 7 o’clock on the eighth night and after having enjoyed my bath, I bought eight raw eggs. This would counteract the attack of sweet potatoes by the old lady. I put the eggs into my right and left pockets, four in each, with the same old red towel hung over my shoulder, my hands inside my coat, went to Masuya. I opened the shoji of the room and Porcupine greeted me with his Idaten-like face suddenly radiant, saying:
“Say, there’s hope! There’s hope!” Up to last night, he had been downcast, and even I felt gloomy. But at his cheerful countenance, I too became cheerful, and before hearing anything, I cried, “Hooray! Hooray!”
“About half past seven this evening,” he said, “that geisha named Kosuzu has gone into Kadoya.”
“With Red Shirt?”
“No.”
“That’s no good then.”