Page:The Cannery Boat.pdf/214

204 “Your rudeness is insufferable. I am Akaji Akai, who people have marked as the coming Premier in the Labour Government. Me, a national figure chosen as the workers’ representative to go to Geneva. You dare tramp on my head!”

“Oh, now he’s started blubbing. That’s enough of that. Either move up or move down, will ye?” and the bottom detective stretches up his arm and grabs Akai.

“Ow, wow, wow, wow! What are you doing, you?” His body begins to move. Down, down they slither, faster and faster; this time Akai pressing on the head of the detective below, and at last they reach the bottom with a bump.

Having arrived there the two come to grips.

“Now, look here, you’re supposed to be one of us, aren’t you? Then what the hell do you mean?”

“I’m sorry, sir, I only wanted to rescue you, Professor. You’d have died if you’d stayed jammed in there much longer. It was the most painful duty that has ever fallen to me to lay hands on”

“Professor, I meant no harm, believe me. I only tramped on your head in order to save your life,” interrupts the second detective, who has arrived by now.

“I don’t want to hear any more. It has become perilous for me to continue any further down into the depths of the mine with dangerous, unreliable