Page:Eminent Authors of Contemporary Japan, volume 2.pdf/139



Senkichi was a little fellow apprenticed to a dealer in weights and measures.

It was a fine Autumn day. The mild sunshine was floating serenely into the front of the shop from beneath the noren-curtain, once indigo in colour, but now faded and old. There was no customer in the shop. Seated behind the counter was an elderly clerk, who was languidly smoking a cigarette. He was talking to another clerk, who was reading a newspaper beside a charcoal brazier.

“I say, Koh-san, the best season of the year for tunny-sushi has come. It’s your favourite dish, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“How about this evening? Shall we go and have some after the shop is shut?”

“It would be awfully nice!”

“It only takes a quarter of an hour by car, round the outer moat.”

“After once tasting the food cooked by that restaurant, one dislikes any of the cooking that one gets round about here.”

“Yes, indeed.”

Now Senkichi, the little apprentice-boy, who worked in the same shop, was sitting a little way behind the younger clerk. He had his hands folded under his apron, and listening to their conversation, he thought