Page:Brinkley - Japan - Volume 4.djvu/110

 source of regular income to the "loafer," for he keeps himself accurately acquainted with everything that goes on there, and is prepared to turn informer or to intimidate the customers unless his silence be expensively purchased by the tea-house and the dancing-girls alike. The master-loafer extends his blackmailing system to other sections of society, generally for simulated purposes of protection, but sometimes in the guise of open menace. Exchange-brokers find it worth their while to conciliate him, and even men in leading positions occasionally procure immunity from the machinations of the loafer class by purchasing the tutelage of a section of it. All businesses that depend on the good faith of their patrons—the aikyō-kagyō, or "amiability trades," as they are called—must placate the gorotsuki, for he not only acts as guardian of their secrets, but also protects them with reckless loyalty against enterprises of any other section of his class, and finally lends his services to compound their not infrequent quarrels with rival panderers to immorality. These parasites on vice go so far as to curry favour with the police by helping to unravel the mystery of crimes too heinous to be concealed. Desperate quarrels with fatal issues often break out between the gorotsuki in connection with their gambling transactions or when they cross each other's paths of illicit gain-getting. But the law is never invoked: the parent settles everything. If there is still time to prevent