Botchan (Master Darling) Part 11

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.

After a while, they began singing ditties in outlandish voices. One of the geishas came in front of me, and taking up a samisen, asked me to sing something. I told her I didn't sing, but I'd like to hear, and she droned out:

"If one can go round and meet the one he wants, banging gongs and drums ...... bang, bang, bang, bang, bing, shouting after wandering Santaro, there is some one I'd like to meet by banging round gongs and drums ...... bang, bang, bang, bang, b-i-n-g."

She dashed this off in two breaths, and sighed, "O, dear!" She should have sung something easier.

Clown who had come near us meanwhile, remarked in his flippant tone:

"h.e.l.lo, dear Miss Su-chan, too bad to see your beau go away so soon."

The geisha pouted, "I don't know." Clown, regardless, began imitating "gidayu" with a dismal voice,--"What a luck, when she met her sweet heart by a rare chance...."

The geisha slapped the lap of Clown with a "Cut that out," and Clown gleefully laughed. This geisha is the one who made goo-goo eyes[J] at Red s.h.i.+rt. What a simpleton, to be pleased by the slap of a geisha, this Clown. He said:

"Say, Su-chan, strike up the string. I'm going to dance the Kiino-kuni."

He seemed yet to dance.

On other side of the room, the old man of Confucius, twisting round his toothless mouth, had finished as far as "...... dear Dembei-san" and is asking a geisha who sat in front of him to couch him for the rest. Old people seem to need polis.h.i.+ng up their memorizing system. One geisha is talking to the teacher of natural history:

"Here's the latest. I'll sing it. Just listen. 'Margaret, the high-collared head with a white ribbon; she rides on a bike, plays a violin, and talks in broken English,--I am glad to see you.'" Natural history appears impressed, and says;

"That's an interesting piece. English in it too."

Porcupine called "geisha, geisha," in a loud voice, and commanded; "Bang your samisen; I'm going to dance a sword-dance."

His manner was so rough that the geishas were startled and did not answer. Porcupine, unconcerned, brought out a cane, and began performing the sword-dance in the center of the room. Then Clown, having danced the Kii-no-kuni, the Kap-pore[K] and the Durhma-san on the Shelf, almost stark-naked, with a palm-fibre broom, began turkey-trotting about the room, shouting "The Sino-j.a.panese negotiations came to a break......."

The whole was a crazy sight.

I had been feeling sorry for Hubbard Squash, who up to this time had sat up straight in his full dress. Even were this a farewell dinner held in his honor, I thought he was under no obligation to look patiently in a formal dress at the naked dance. So I went to him and persuaded him with "Say, Koga-san, let's go home." Hubbard Squash said the dinner was in his honor, and it would be improper for him to leave the room before the guests. He seemed to be determined to remain.

"What do you care!" I said, "If this is a farewell dinner, make it like one. Look at those fellows; they're just like the inmates of a lunatic asylum. Let's go."

And having forced hesitating Hubbard Squash to his feet, we were just leaving the room, when Clown, marching past, brandis.h.i.+ng the broom, saw us.

"This won't do for the guest of honor to leave before us," he hollered, "this is the Sino-j.a.panese negotiations. Can't let you off." He enforced his declaration by holding the broom across our way. My temper had been pretty well aroused for some time, and I felt impatient.

"The Sino-j.a.panese negotiation, eh? Then you're a c.h.i.n.k," and I whacked his head with a knotty fist.

This sudden blow left Clown staring blankly speechless for a second or two; then he stammered out:

"This is going some! Mighty pity to knock my head. What a blow on this Yos.h.i.+kawa! This makes the Sino-j.a.panese negotiations the sure stuff."

While Clown was mumbling these incoherent remarks, Porcupine, believing some kind of row had been started, ceased his sword-dance and came running toward us. On seeing us, he grabbed the neck of Clown and pulled him back.

"The Sino-j.a.pane......ouch!......ouch! This is outrageous," and Clown writhed under the grip of Porcupine who twisted him sideways and threw him down on the floor with a bang. I do not know the rest. I parted from Hubbard Squash on the way, and it was past eleven when I returned home.

CHAPTER X.