From the gate to the entrance the walk was paved with granite. When I
had passed to the entrance in the rikisha, this walk made so
outlandishly a loud noise that I had felt coy. On my way to the school,
I met a number of the students in uniforms of cotton drill and they all
entered this gate. Some of them were taller than I and looked much
stronger. When I thought of teaching fellows of this ilk, I was
impressed with a queer sort of uneasiness. My card was taken to the
principal, to whose room I was ushered at once. With scant mustache,
dark-skinned and big-eyed, the principal was a man who looked like a
badger. He studiously assumed an air of superiority, and saying he would
like to see me do my best, handed the note of appointment, stamped big,
in a solemn manner. This note I threw away into the sea on my way back
to Tokyo. He said he would introduce me to all my fellow teachers, and I
was to show to each one of them the note of appointment. What a bother!
It would be far better to stick this note up in the teachers' room for
three days instead of going through such a monkey process.
The teachers would not be all in the room until the bugle for the first
hour was sounded. There was plenty of time. The principal took out his
watch, and saying that he would acquaint me particularly with the school
by-and-bye, he would only furnish me now with general matters, and
started a long lecture on the spirit of education.
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