and giving me 600 yen, said that I might begin a business with it, or go
ahead with my study, or spend it in any way I liked, but that that would
be the last he could spare. It was a commendable act for my brother.
What! about only 600 yen! I could get along without it, I thought, but
as this unusually simple manner appealed to me, I accepted the offer
with thanks. Then he produced 50 yen, requesting me to give it to Kiyo
next time I saw her, which I readily complied with. Two days after, I
saw him off at the Shimbashi Station, and have not set my eyes on him
ever since.

Lying in my bed, I meditated on the best way to spend that 600 yen. A
business is fraught with too much trouble, and besides it was not my
calling. Moreover with only 600 yen no one could open a business worth
the name. Were I even able to do it, I was far from being educated, and
after all, would lose it. Better let investments alone, but study more
with the money. Dividing the 600 yen into three, and by spending 200 yen
a year, I could study for three years. If I kept at one study with
bull-dog tenacity for three years, I should be able to learn something.
Then the selection of a school was the next problem. By nature, there is
no branch of study whatever which appeals to my taste. Nix on languages
or literature! The new poetry was all Greek to me; I could not make out
one single line of twenty. Since I detested every kind of study, any
kind of study should have been the same to me. Thinking thus, I happened
to pass front of a school of physics, and seeing a sign posted for the
admittance of more students, I thought this might be a kind of
"affinity," and having asked for the prospectus, at once filed my
application for entrance. When I think of it now, it was a blunder due
to my hereditary recklessness.

For three years I studied about as diligently as ordinary fellows, but