Part 11 (1/2)

After the exchange of addresses, a sizzling sound was heard here and there, and I too tried the soup which tasted like anything but soup.

There was kamaboko in the kuchitori dish, but instead of being snow white as it should be, it looked grayish, and was more like a poorly cooked chikuwa. The sliced tunny was there, but not having been sliced fine, pa.s.sed the throat like so many pieces of chopped raw tunny. Those around me, however, ate with ravenous appet.i.te. They have not tasted, I guess, the real Yedo dinner.

Meanwhile the bottles began pa.s.sing round, and all became more or less ”jacked up.” Clown proceeded to the front of the princ.i.p.al and submissively drank to his health. A beastly fellow, this! Hubbard Squash made a round of all the guests, drinking to their health. A very onerous job, indeed. When he came to me and proposed my health, I abandoned the squatting posture and sat up straight.

”Too bad to see you go away so soon. When are you going? I want to see you off at the beach,” I said.

”Thank you, Sir. But never mind that. You're busy,” he declined. He might decline, but I was determined to get excused for the day and give him a rousing send-off.

Within about an hour from this, the room became pretty lively.

”Hey, have another, hic; ain't goin', hic, have one on me?” One or two already in a pickled state appeared on the scene. I was little tired, and going out to the porch, was looking at the old fas.h.i.+oned garden by the dim star light, when Porcupine came.

”How did you like my speech? Wasn't it grand, though!” he remarked in a highly elated tone. I protested that while I approved 99 per cent, of his speech, there was one per cent, that I did not. ”What's that one per cent?” he asked.

”Well, you said,...... there is not a single high-collared guy who with smooth face entraps innocent people.......”

”Yes.”

”A 'high-collared guy' isn't enough.”

”Then what should I say?”

”Better say,--'a high-collared guy; swindler, b.a.s.t.a.r.d, super-sw.a.n.ker, doubleface, bluffer, totempole, spotter, who looks like a dog as he yelps.'”

”I can't get my tongue to move so fast. You're eloquent. In the first place, you know a great many simple words. Strange that you can't make a speech.”

”I reserve these words for use when I chew the rag. If it comes to speech-making, they don't come out so smoothly.”

”Is that so? But they simply come a-running. Repeat that again for me.”

”As many times as you like. Listen,--a high-collared guy, swindler, b.a.s.t.a.r.d, super-sw.a.n.ker ...”

While I was repeating this, two shaky fellows came out of the room hammering the floor.

”Hey, you two gents, if won't do to run away. Won't let you off while I'm here. Come and have a drink. b.a.s.t.a.r.d? That's fine. b.a.s.t.a.r.dly fine.

Now, come on.”

And they pulled Porcupine and me away. These two fellows really had come to the lavatory, but soaked as they were, in booze bubbles, they apparently forgot to proceed to their original destination, and were pulling us hard. All booze fighters seem to be attracted by whatever comes directly under their eyes for the moment and forget what they had been proposing to do.

”Say, fellows, we've got b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. Make them drink. Get them loaded. You gents got to stay here.”

And they pushed me who never attempted to escape against the wall.

Surveying the scene, I found there was no dish in which any edibles were left. Some one had eaten all his share, and gone on a foraging expedition. The princ.i.p.al was not there,--I did not know when he left.

At that time, preceded by a coquetish voice, three or four geishas entered the room. I was a bit surprised, but having been pushed against the wall, I had to look on quietly. At the instant, Red s.h.i.+rt who had been leaning against a pillar with the same old amber pipe stuck into his mouth with some pride, suddenly got up and started to leave the room. One of the geishas who was advancing toward him smiled and courtesied at him as she pa.s.sed by him. The geisha was the youngest and prettiest of the bunch. They were some distance away from me and I could not see very well, but it seemed that she might have said ”Good evening.” Red s.h.i.+rt brushed past as if unconscious, and never showed again. Probably he followed the princ.i.p.al.

The sight of the geishas set the room immediately in a buzz and it became noisy as they all raised howls of welcome. Some started the game of ”nanko” with a force that beat the sword-drawing practice. Others began playing morra, and the way they shook their hands, intently absorbed in the game, was a better spectacle than a puppet show.

One in the corner was calling ”Hey, serve me here,” but shaking the bottle, corrected it to ”Hey, fetch me more sake.” The whole room became so infernally noisy that I could scarcely stand it. Amid this orgy, one, like a fish out of water, sat down with his head bowed. It was Hubbard Squash. The reason they have held this farewell dinner party was not in order to bid him a farewell, but because they wanted to have a jolly good time for themselves with John Barleycorn. He had come to suffer only. Such a dinner party would have been better had it not been started at all.