Among those I met in the room there was Mr. Blank who was head teacher.
Said he was a Bachelor of Arts. I suppose he was a great man since he
was a graduate from Imperial University and had such a title. He talked
in a strangely effeminate voice like a woman. But what surprised me most
was that he wore a flannel shirt. However thin it might be, flannel is
flannel and must have been pretty warm at that time of the year. What
painstaking dress is required which will be becoming to a B.A.! And it
was a red shirt; wouldn't that kill you! I heard afterwards that he
wears a red shirt all the year round. What a strange affliction!
According to his own explanation, he has his shirts made to order for
the sake of his health as the red color is beneficial to the physical
condition. Unnecessary worry, this, for that being the case, he should
have had his coat and hakama also in red. And there was one Mr. Koga,
teacher of English, whose complexion was very pale. Pale-faced people
are usually thin, but this man was pale and fat. When I was attending
grammar school, there was one Tami Asai in our class, and his father was
just as pale as this Koga. Asai was a farmer, and I asked Kiyo if one's
face would become pale if he took up farming. Kiyo said it was not so;
Asai ate always Hubbard squash of "uranari" [2] and that was the reason.
Thereafter when I saw any man pale and fat, I took it for granted that
it was the result of his having eaten too much of squash of "uranari."
This English teacher was surely subsisting upon squash. However, what
the meaning of "uranari" is, I do not know. I asked Kiyo once, but she
only laughed. Probably she did not know. Among the teachers of
mathematics, there was one named Hotta. This was a fellow of massive
body, with hair closely cropped. He looked like one of the old-time
devilish priests who made the Eizan temple famous. I showed him the note
politely, but he did not even look at it, and blurted out;