Page:The Cannery Boat.pdf/210

200 slips on the banana skin he has just thrown away and his big fat porky body goes down with a flop.

The students all close in on him. In the middle the lean Dr. Hijukake is wildly trying to control them and pull up Akai by the arm at the same time. But he can’t move him. Akai at last gets up by himself and beats a hasty retreat through the door. The doctor follows.

One wag has somehow managed to rescue the fateful banana skin and, holding it up between his fingers, ascends the platform and begins to address the students surging round him.

“Gentlemen, the class struggle is a banana skin. Useless, you can’t eat it, it contains no nourishment, it’s good for nothing. But, gentlemen, this one thing, this skin, this class struggle has shown its great potentiality: it can trip up fakirs!”

“Hear, hear,” the students clap and shout. But the student who has just spoken picks up the red book left by Akai, looks at it, and with a dumbfounded expression holds it up for them all to see. On the cover are printed the following words:

“ Price 50 sen.”

Akaji Akai arrives at the city of Hakata in the Fukuoka district. At the station entrance the district governor and the chief of police, in full regalia, have turned out to receive him. Besides them there is a fairly large gathering, made up of the local members of parliament, business men and