Page:The Cannery Boat.pdf/149

Rh were to drop out half-way through, had planned to weed out the Left-Wing elements who were always ready to flare up over anything. She related how a 60,000 yen bribe had been given to the Right-Wingers; how one well-known renegade leader had been photographed staggering out of the geisha-house dead drunk; how in the taxi he had counted a big wad of bills and blustered out boldly, “We hold the key to the strike,” and how in order to cover up all these goings-on, and put people off the scent, the Electric Bureau had sent out an “appeal” to the citizens. All this was proved by the fact that after the settlement more than a hundred lost their jobs, and those who were taken back at last were much worse off than before, while the renegades had neatly pocketed 60,000 yen.

“You certainly helped to do a fine piece of work, didn’t you now?”

As I have said, Arisuke was a steady, high-principled young fellow. When such people begin to doubt the value of the work they have put their whole heart and soul into, the result is often serious. Arisuke had become ashen pale all of a sudden.

To come upon such a girl in Tamanoi or in Kameido is nothing very out of the ordinary. After this she went on to explain all these things to him in fuller detail, and at dawn the serious thing happened to him. I repeat, once again, that he was a man of the most rigid morals, bound always to follow the straight and narrow way he thought was right.