He is incapable of appreciating, let alone weighing, the balance of his own advantage and disadvantage. So he goes his own mad road, feeble but persistent in resisting redirection, totally oblivious to his own best interest. He’s always been like that. A hopeless case.”
Goldfield burst into genuine laughter at the portrait drawn by Suzuki of a character so ludicrous to them both that cachinnation was their only possible reaction. “You’ve hit the nail on the head. I’ve tried all sorts of tricks to shake him up. Knowing the level of his intelligence, I’ve even hired schoolkids to play him up with pranks.”
“That was a bright idea! Did it work?”
“I think it’s working. Certainly it’s put him under strain, and I fancy it’s now only a matter of time before he cracks under the pressure.”
“Under sheer weight of numbers! How clever you are.”
“Yes, I think that he’s beginning to feel the effects of his singularity.
Anyway, he’s pretty weakened and I want you to go along and see how he is.”
“Gladly. I’ll call on him right away and let you have a report on my way back. This should be interesting. It must be quite a sight to see that bull-headed fellow down in the dumps.”
“Very well, then. See you later. I’ll be expecting you.”
“All right, Sir.”
Well, well! So here we are again with another pretty plot. The power of a businessman is indeed formidable. By its frightening force my clink-er of a master has been set afire with frenzy; his thatch of hair is well on its agonized way to becoming a skating rink for flies, and his skull can soon expect an Aeschylean bashing. Considering how much has been achieved by the power of a single businessman, I am obliged to conclude that, though I’ll never know why the earth spins around on its axis, it’s certainly cash that motivates this world. None know better than businessmen what power money buys. It is by their nod that the sun comes up in the east and, by their decision, goes down in the west. I have been very slow to learn the divine right of businessmen, and I attribute my backwardness to the atmosphere, the cultural effluvia from a poor pigheaded schoolie, in which I have been reared. The time has clearly come when my dimwitted bigot of a master simply must wake up to the realities of this world. To persevere in his present attitudes could well prove dangerous; dangerous, even, to that dreary, dull, dyspeptic life which he so desperately treasures. How, I wonder, will my master cope with the coming visitation of Suzuki? Believing that the style in which that visitor is received will be an accurate indicator of the degree to which my master has learnt to recognize and accept the power of businessmen, I know I must not loiter. Though merely a cat, I accept the imperatives of loyalty and am worried for my master’s safety. I slink around the nauseating Suzuki and, at a scamper, got back home before him.
Suzuki proves as smooth and slippery as ever. No mention of the Goldfields soils his subtle lips, but he chats away, amused and even amusing, on matters of no importance.
“You don’t look too well. Is anything wrong?”
“No, I’m quite well.”
“But you’re pale. Must take care of yourself. The weather’s not been good. Are you sleeping all right?”
“Yes.”
“Perhaps you have some worry. If there’s anything I can do, just tell me.”
“Worry? What worry?”
“Oh, if you’re so lucky as to be quite worry-free, that’s fine. I only spoke of worry in the hope that I might help. Worry, you know, is the worst of poisons. It’s much more profitable to live one’s life with gaiety and laughter. You seem to me a bit depressed, gloomy even.”
“Laughter’s no joke, sometimes positively harmful. Men have died from too much laughter.”
“Nonsense. Remember the saying that luck arrives through a merry gate.”
“It sounds to me as though you’ve never heard of Chrysippus. Have you? An ancient Greek philosopher?”
“Never heard of him. What did he do?”
“He died of laughter.”
“Really? How extraordinary! But that was long ago.”
“What difference does that make? Chrysippus saw a donkey eating figs from a silver bowl and thought the sight so funny he laughed and laughed and couldn’t stop laughing. Eventually he laughed himself to death.”
“Well, that’s certainly a very funny story, but I’m not suggesting you should laugh your life away. But laugh a little, moderately, a little more than you do, and you’ll find you feel wonderful.”
Suzuki was watching my master through intently narrowed eyes, but his concentration was broken by the noise of the front gate opening. I thought, with pleased relief that one of my master’s friends had chosen this happy moment to drop in. But I was wrong.
“Our ball’s come in. May I go and get it?”
O-san answered from the kitchen, “Yes, you may,” and the schoolboy pads around to the back garden.
Suzuki distinctly puzzled, asks, “What was all that about?”
“The boys from the school next door have batted one of their balls into my garden.”
“Schoolboys next door? Do you have schoolboys for neighbors?”
“There’s a school out back, the Hall of the Descending Cloud.”
“Oh, I see. A school. It must be very noisy.”
“You’ve no idea how noisy it is. I can’t even study. If I were the Minister of Education, I’d order it closed forthwith.”
Suzuki permitted himself a burst of laughter sufficiently long to increase my master’s irritation. “My goodness,” he observed when his cackling ceased, “you really are worked up. Do the schoolboys bother you all that much?”
“Bother me! They certainly do! They bother me from morning until night.”
“If you find it all so irritating, why don’t you move away?”
“You dare suggest that I should move away! What impertinence!”
“Steady on, now. There’s no point in getting angry with me. Anyway, they’re only little boys. If I were you, I’d simply disregard them.”
“Yes, I expect you would; but I wouldn’t. Only yesterday I summoned one of the teachers here and lodged a formal complaint.”
“What a lark! He must have been ashamed.”
“He was.”
Just then, we heard again a voice and the sound of the front door opening. “Our ball’s rolled in. May I please go and fetch it.”
“Golly,” said Suzuki, “not another with another lost ball.”
“Yes, I’ve agreed that they should come by the front gate.”
“I see, I see. They do keep coming, don’t they? One after the other!