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BOTCHAN


there is any reason, tell me first. What’s the matter with you, deciding what the boss says is reasonable without hearing me.”

“Then you shall hear,” he said. “You’re too tough and been regarded a nuisance over there. Say, the wife of a boarding house is a wife, not a maid, and you’ve been such a four-flusher as to make her wipe your feet.”

“When did I make her wipe my feet?” I asked.

“I don’t know whether you did or did not, but anyway they’re pretty sore about you. He said he can make ten or fifteen yen easily if he sell a roll of panel-picture.”

“Damn the chap! Why did he take me for a boarder then!”

“I don’t know why. They took you but they want you leave because they got tired of you. So you’d better get out.”

“Sure, I will. Who’d stay in such a house even if they beg me on their knees. You’re inso-

–121–