BOTCHAN
followed the principal.
The sight of the geishas set the room immediately in a buzz and it became noisy as they all raised howls of welcome. Some started the game of “nanko” with a force that beat the sword-drawing practice. Others began playing morra, and the way they shook their hands, intently absorbed in the game, was a better spectacle than a puppet show.
One in the corner was calling “Hey, serve me here,” but shaking the bottle, corrected it to “Hey, fetch me more sake.” The whole room became so infernally noisy that I could scarcely stand it. Amid this orgy, one, like a fish out of water, sat down with his head bowed. It was Hubbard Squash. The reason they have held this farewell dinner party was not in order to bid him a farewell, but because they wanted to have a jolly good time for themselves with John Barleycorn. He had come to suffer only. Such a dinner party would have been better had it not
–210–
