nature and of quick-temper. I heard afterward that he was liked most by
all the students in the school.



CHAPTER III.

My teaching began at last. When I entered the class-room and stepped
upon the platform for the first time, I felt somewhat strange. While
lecturing, I wondered if a fellow like me could keep up the profession
of public instructor. The students were noisy. Once in a while, they
would holler "Teacher!" "Teacher,"--it was "going some." I had been
calling others "teacher" every day so far, in the school of physics, but
in calling others "teacher" and being called one, there is a wide gap of
difference. It made me feel as if some one was tickling my soles. I am
not a sneakish fellow, nor a coward; only--it's a pity--I lack audacity.
If one calls me "teacher" aloud, it gives me a shock similar to that of
hearing the noon-gun in Marunouchi when I was hungry. The first hour
passed away in a dashing manner. And it passed away without encountering
any knotty questions. As I returned to the teachers' room, Porcupine
asked me how it was. I simply answered "well," and he seemed satisfied.

When I left the teachers' room, chalk in hand, for the second hour
class, I felt as if I was invading the enemy's territory. On entering
the room, I found the students for this hour were all big fellows. I am
a Tokyo kid, delicately built and small, and did not appear very
impressive even in my elevated position. If it comes to a scraping, I
can hold my own even with wrestlers, but I had no means of appearing
awe-inspiring[E], merely by the aid of my tongue, to so many as forty
such big chaps before me. Believing, however, that it would set a bad