BOTCHAN
seem to be bent on pushing everything to the limit. As they lived in such a narrow town where one has no more to see if he goes on strolling about for one hour, and as they were capable of doing nothing better, they were trumpeting aloud this tempura incident in quite as serious a manner as the Russo-Japanese war. What a bunch of miserable pups! It is because they are raised in this fashion from their boyhood that there are many punies who, like the dwarf maple tree in the flower pot, mature gnarled and twisted. I have no objection to laugh myself with others over innocent jokes. But how’s this? Boys as they are, they showed a “poisonous temper.” Silently erasing off “tempura” from the board, I questioned them if they thought such mischief interesting, that this was a cowardly joke and if they knew the meaning of “cowardice.” Some of them answered that to get angry on being laughed at over one’s own doing, was cowardice. What made them so disgusting as this? I pitied
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