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BOTCHAN


up and wrote a long one. The body of the letter was as follows:

“Arrived yesterday. A dull place. Am sleeping in a room of 15 mats. Tipped the hotel five yen as tea money. The house-wife of the hotel scraped the floor with her forehead. Couldn’t sleep last night. Dreamed Kiyo eat sasa-ame together with the bamboo-leaf wrappers. Will return next summer. Went to the school to-day, and nicknamed all the fellows. ‘Badger’ for the principal, ‘Red Shirt’ for the head-teacher, ‘Hubbard Squash’ for the teacher of English, ‘Porcupine’ the teacher of mathematics and ‘Clown’ for that of drawing. Will write you many other things soon. Good bye.”

When I finished writing the letter, I felt better and sleepy. So I slept in the centre of the room, as I had done before, in the letter “big” shape (大). No dream this time, and I had a sound sleep.

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