then everything will be rosy. But I suppose with all that they wouldn’t make the profits they do unless they treated the men as badly as this.”
Night came.
Partly to celebrate the “ten thousandth can,” sake, raw spirits, dried cuttlefish, boiled vegetables, cigarettes and caramels were distributed among them.
Four or five in the front row began clapping and all the others followed suit. The boss appeared before the white screen. He straightened himself and, folding his arms behind him, started to speak, making use of such polite words as “gentlemen” which rarely came from his lips, mixed in with his usual stuff about “you men of Japan” and “national wealth.” Most of them did not listen to him. They chewed away at cuttlefish.
“Shut up, shut up!” someone in the rear yelled.
“Sit down, you!”
They began to whistle and clap madly.
In such circumstances the boss could not very well get angry. His face went red and he said something (which no one heard because of the uproar) and then sat down. The movies began.
The first was “educational.” Scenes of the Imperial Palace, Matsushima, Enoshima, Kyoto flickered across the screen. After that followed some Western and Japanese dramas. Then men were all absolutely enthralled. When a fine-limbed Western girl appeared they whistled and snorted like pigs.
The Western picture was an American one,
