Self-defeatingly, my master proved unable to hold his tongue. “Since this house stands next to the school, I realize it’s inevitable that balls from the playground will sometimes roll in here. But, the boys are really too rowdy. If they must come over the fence, if they only collected their balls in decent silence and left without disturbing us, then I might be content not to pursue the matter, but. . .”
“Quite so. I will most certainly caution them yet again. But you’ll appreciate there are so many of them sculling about all over the place that it’s difficult for us teachers to. . . Listen, you lot: you must take far more care to behave properly. If a ball flies into this property, you must go right around to the front door and seek the master’s permission to retrieve it. Understand?” He turned again to my master. “It is, good sir, a big school and our numbers give us endless, endless trouble. Since physical exercise is now an integral part of the educational system, we can hardly forbid them playing baseball even though we realize that the particular game can so easily prove a nuisance to your good self. We can thus only entreat you to overlook their intrusions in a benign awareness that high spirits do sometimes overflow into misconduct. For our part, we will ensure that they always present themselves at your front entrance and request your generous permission to enter upon your land and retrieve their balls.”
“That will be perfectly satisfactory. They may throw in as many balls as they wish. If in future the boys will present themselves properly at the front door and properly ask permission, everything will be fine. Perhaps I may now hand these particular miscreants back into your charge for supervised conduct back to school. I am only sorry that it has proved necessary to put you personally to the inconvenience of coming over here to cope with this business.” As always, my master, though he went up with the dash and sizzle of a rocket, came down like a dull old stick.
The teacher of ethics led off his mountain troopers through the front gate, and so this major incident drooped to its tame conclusion.
If you laugh at me for calling it a major event, well, you are free to laugh. Should it, for you, seem trivial, then so indeed it is, but I have been describing what seemed to my master, not perhaps to anyone else, events of enormous magnitude. Anyone who sneers at him as, at best, an arrow shot from a possibly once strong bow but now so far gone as to be spent and feeble, should be reminded that such spent-arrowness is the essence of the man, and, moreover, that his peculiar character has made him the star figure in a popular comic novel. Those who call him a fool for wasting his days in crazy quarrels with the younger kinds of teenage schoolboys command my immediate assent, for he is undoubtedly a fool. Which, of course, is why certain critics have said that my master has not yet grown out of his babyhood.
Having now described the minor and major events in my master’s war with the Hall, I shall close that history with an account of their aftermath. Some of my readers may choose to believe that I’m having them on with a history of pure balderdash but, I do assure you, no cat, and least of all myself, would be so irresponsible. Every single letter, every single word that I set down implies and reflects a cosmic philoso-phy and, as these letters and words cohere into sentences and paragraphs, they become a coordinated whole, clear and consistent, with beginnings and ends skillfully designed to correspond and, by that correspondence, to provide an overall world view of the condition of all creation. Thus, these close written pages, which the more superficial minds amongst you have seen as nothing better than a tiresome spate of trivial chit-chat, shall suddenly reveal themselves as containing weighty wisdom, edifying homilies, guidance for you all. I would therefore be obliged if you would have the courtesy to sit up straight, stop lolling about like so many sloppy sacks, and, instead of skimming through my text, study it with close attention. May I remind you that Liu Tsung-yüan thought it proper to actually lave his hands with rose-water before touching the paper lucky enough to carry the prose of his fellow poet and fellow scholar, Han T’ni-chih. The prose which I have written deserves a treatment no less punctiliously respectful. You should not disgrace yourselves by reading it in some old dog-eared copy of a magazine filched or borrowed from a friend. Have at least the grace to buy a copy of the magazine with your own money. As I indicated at the beginning of this well-constructed paragraph, I am about to describe an aftermath.
If you think an aftermath could not possibly be interesting and consequently propose to skip reading it, you will most bitterly regret your decision. You simply must read on to the end.
On the day following the major showdown I took myself off for a walk. I had barely set out when, on the corner across from my master’s house where a side street joins the road, whom should I see but Goldfield and his toady Suzuki engaged in earnest conversation.
Lickspittle Suzuki had in fact just left the Goldfield mansion after some obsequious visit there, when its ‘flat-faced’ owner, homebound in his rickshaw, stopped to speak with him. Though I have lately come to find old Goldfield’s household something of a bore and have therefore discontinued calling there, the sight of the old rogue himself stirred in my heart an odd warmth toward him. I even feel sufficient interest in Suzuki, whom I haven’t seen for several weeks, to sidle across for a closer look; it was thus natural that, as I drifted toward them, their conversation should fall upon my ears. It’s not my fault, but theirs, if in a public place I happen to hear their talk. Goldfield, a man whose broad concept of decency permits him to hire marks to spy upon my master, would, I feel quite sure, extend his sympathetic understanding to any chance coincidence of presence which narrower minds might consider common eaves-dropping. I’d be disappointed if he displayed such lack of balance as to cut up rough. In any event, I heard their conversation—
not, I repeat, of my own will or by my own scheming, simply because their talking was rammed into my ears.
“I’ve just been to your house. How fortunate to have met you here.”
Suzuki performs his usual series of overhumble bows.
“Fortunate indeed. As a matter of fact, I’ve been wanting to see you.”
“Have you, Sir? How lucky then. Is there anything I can do for you?”
“Well, nothing serious. Quite unimportant really. But it’s something only you could do.”
“You may be assured that anything I can do, most happily I will. What have you in mind?”
“Well now. . .” grunted Goldfield as he searched for the right words.
“If you prefer, I could come back any time which happens to suit you.
Would you care to suggest a time?”
“No, no, it’s not all that important. Indeed, I might as well tell you now.”
“Please don’t hesitate.”
“That crazy fellow, that friend of yours. . . what’s his name now. . .
Sneaze I think it was. . .”
“Oh, him. What’s Sneaze been up to now?”
“Nothing really, but I’ve not entirely gotten over that last annoying business. It’s left a nasty taste in my mouth.”
“I quite understand. Vainglory such as his is positively sickening. He should see himself and his social status realistically; but no, stupid and stuck-up, he carries on like the lord of all creation.”
“That’s just it. His insolent disparagement of the business community gets my goat. All that rant about never bowing to the might of money.
So I thought I’d let him see what a businessman can do. For quite some time now I’ve been putting spokes in his wagon, modest irritations involving no more than modest expenditure, but the man’s incredibly stubborn and I find myself stumped by his sheer block-headedness. He can’t, apparently, grasp that he’s being got at.”
“The trouble is that he has no real understanding of profit and loss.