Page:Eminent Authors of Contemporary Japan.pdf/61

Rh too narrow, and it will be hard to sell again at any profit at all.
 * Koyama.—But can’t you give me a little more for these things?
 * Ragman.—Very well, Sir,—I will give you thirty sen more. I would like to offer you eight yen, but it is impossible, for I would make nothing myself. They are all rather old, you know.
 * Koyama.—That will do, then.
 * Ragman.—Thank you. Sir. (He takes the money out of his purse.) ('Counting) Seven yen, fifty, sixty, seventy eighty sen. Please see that it is right, Sir.
 * Koyama.—(Taking the money and putting it away). How is business these days with you? Is it good?
 * Ragman.—To tell the truth, Sir, we are having rather a hard time lately. It seems hard to get enough to earn one’s daily food. Sometimes I walk all day, and get little for my pains.
 * Koyama.—Yes, indeed; things are not good at present. All of us experience the same thing.
 * Ragman.—Times are hard indeed. Has any one told you that there is a woman coolie going about disguised as a man, so that she may earn more money?
 * Koyama.—Yes, I have read it in the papers. Perhaps the poor woman could no longer live on a woman’s wage, which is small.
 * Ragman.—Yes, Sir; it sometimes seems to me that we cannot get along at all, if we always do what is right and honest and just. Man sometimes is driven to anything in order that he may live,