Page:The Cannery Boat.pdf/166

156 six representatives from Simaojzi returned to Yotani. The Osawa Peasant Union already existed.

Hamamato lay on his bed with a cold compress on his head in the Tekisuikaku Hotel.

Nine men, followed by the dissatisfied glances of the hotel servants, crowded up the stairs to Hamamato’s room. The waitresses under the stairway were alarmed to see these strange personages in a respectable hotel, and wondered what they had come for.

They left behind them in the entrance a heap of wet straw cloaks, from which an unpleasant smell arose.

“Long five the Osawa Peasant Union!”

“Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!”

Loud cries suddenly resounded through the whole hotel. The waitresses ran off in a fright. The servants from the restaurant came crowding up the stairs with anxious faces.

Hamamato, clad in nothing but his night-kimono, was seated on a padded quilt, surrounded by a crowd of people. A happy smile played over his weary, green-tinged face.

“Comrades! Just a minute. I want to teach you a fighting peasant song. I’ll sing it, and you’ll learn if off by heart, won’t you?”

Moistening his lips and casting a laughing glance around, he began to sing:

“If we didn’t pay our taxes We’d be thrown into the road. Thirty per cent. this year, Fifty per cent. next year,