Wager in Mid-air 177
“I suppose you’re a great hand at the flute,” said Kichikō.
“No, I can’t play. I like listening, though,” said Chō.
“Well, you’re a fine one to tell me I can’t play the flute! You’re a clumsy brute yourself.”
“I may not be able to play, but at least I know what it’s all about. You haven’t got the vaguest idea what art is. It’s not something you can learn like playing tiddly-winks!”
“Oh yes, I’d forgotten. You’re a great artist, aren’t you? said Kichikō laughing. “A great artist when it comes to singing songs in the beer parlour, I mean!”
“I’m good at standing on my hands,” announced Chō, beaming all over but with a touch of genuine pride. Chō was a rather silent man. He had a large round face—almost bloated, in fact. There was something about his expression that made one feel he was smiling inwardly all the time in a warm, pleasant way.
“Standing on your hands? What a very original art!” I said without thinking. We all laughed, including Chō.
I did not know why, but for some reason Chō’s hand-standing excited my curiosity. In time I came to learn Chō himself and from some of his friends how he had acquired his avocation. It appeared that he had once seen a girl doing a hand-standing stunt in the circus. Standing upright on her hands, she had crossed a long narrow plank suspended between two platforms high over the arena. Chō had been greatly impressed. There seemed to be no catch in this as in so many other circus tricks; it was purely the result of long practice. Suddenly it occurred to him, as he sat there in the circus, that he could learn the trick himself.
From then on, he began practising hand-stands whenever he had time—after meals, in the evenings and in the brief rest-periods between work. At least it broke the monotony.
Often he was discouraged and felt that he would never be any good. Yet he persevered. “It’s that girl,” he told me once, “that girl at the circus. I just can’t get her out of my mind. She was a real beauty, you know. Fine white teeth, red lips,
