Page:Soseki - Botchan (1918).djvu/84

 limit. Wouldn’t look well for the principal or the head teacher to see you out like this.”

The submissive tone of his remark was contrary to Porcupine as I had known him so far, so I cut him short by saying:

“I have met the principal just now. Why, he approved my taking a stroll about the town. Said it would be hard on night watch unless he took a walk when it is hot.” Then I made a bee-line for the school.

Soon it was night. I called the janitor to my room and had a chat for about two hours. I grew tired of this, and thought I would get into bed anyway, even if I could not sleep. I put on my night shirt, lifted the mosquito-net, rolled off the red blanket and fell down flat on my back with a bang. The making of this bumping noise when I go to bed is my habit from my boyhood. “It is a bad habit,” once declared a student of a law school who lived on the ground floor, and I on the second, when I was in the boarding house