BOTCHAN
teachers’ room, Porcupine asked me how it was. I simply answered “well,” and he seemed satisfied.
When I left the teachers’ room, chalk in hand, for the second hour class, I felt as if I was invading the enemy’s territory. On entering the room, I found the students for this hour were all big fellows. I am a Tokyo kid, delicately built and small, and did not appear very impressive even in my elevated position. If it comes to a scraping, I can hold my own even with wrestlers, but I had no means of appearing aweinspiring, merely by the aid of my tongue, to so many as forty such big chaps before me. Believing, however, that it would set a bad precedent to show these country fellows any weakness, I lectured rather loudly and in brusque tone. During the first part the students were taken aback and listened literally with their mouths open. “That’s one on you!” I thought. Elated by my success, I kept on in this tone, when one who looked the
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