About twenty chairs, with black leather
seat, were lined around a narrow table, and the whole scene looked like
a restaurant in Kanda. At one end of the table the principal took his
seat, and next to him Red Shirt. All the rest shifted for themselves,
but the gymnasium teacher is said always to take the seat farthest down
out of modesty. The situation was new to me, so I sat down between the
teachers of natural history and of Confucius. Across the table sat
Porcupine and Clown. Think how I might, the face of Clown was a
degrading type. That of Porcupine was far more charming, even if I was
now on bad terms with him. The panel picture which hung in the alcove of
the reception hall of Yogen temple where I went to the funeral of my
father, looked exactly like this Porcupine. A priest told me the picture
was the face of a strange creature called Idaten. To-day he was pretty
sore, and frequently stared at me with his fiery eyes rolling. "You
can't bulldoze me with that," I thought, and rolled my own in defiance
and stared back at him. My eyes are not well-shaped but their large size
is seldom beaten by others. Kiyo even once suggested that I should make
a fine actor because I had big eyes.
"All now here?" asked the principal, and the clerk named Kawamura
counted one, two, three and one was short.
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