BOTCHAN
haiku is a half-brother of the new poetry, and expect to hush it up by twaddling soft nonsense. A weak-knee like him is not a man. I believe he lived the life of a court-maid in former life. Perhaps his daddy might have been a kagema at Yushima in old days.”
“What is a kagema?”
“I suppose something very unmanly,–sort of emasculated chaps. Say, that part isn’t cooked enough. It might give you tape worm.”
“So? I think it’s all right. And, say, Red Shirt is said to frequent Kadoya at the springs town and meet his geisha there, but he keeps it in dark.”
“Kadoya? That hotel?”
“Also a restaurant. So we’ve got to catch him there with his geisha and make it hot for him right to his face.”
“Catch him there? Suppose we begin a kind of night watch?”
“Yes, you know there is a rooming house called
–227–
