fellows who had been making a chewing noise together in a corner, looked
in my direction. As the room was dark I did not notice them at first.
But when we looked at each other, I found them all to be boys in our
school. They "how d'ye do'd" me and I acknowledged it. That night,
having come across the noodle after so long a time, it tasted so fine
that I ate four bowls.

The next day as I entered the class room quite unconcernedly, I saw on
the black board written in letters so large as to take up the whole
space; "Professor Tempura." The boys all glanced at my face and made
merry hee-haws at my cost. It was so absurd that I asked them if it was
in any way funny for me to eat tempura noodle. Thereupon one of them
said,--"But four bowls is too much." What did they care if I ate four
bowls or five as long as I paid it with my own money,--and speedily
finishing up my class, I returned to the teachers' room. After ten
minutes' recess, I went to the next class, and there on the black board
was newly written quite as large as before; "Four bowls of tempura
noodles, but don't laugh."

The first one did not arouse any ill-temper in me, but this time it made
me feel irritating mad. A joke carried too far becomes mischievous. It
is like the undue jealousy of some women who, like coal, look black and
suggest flames. Nobody likes it. These country simpletons, unable to
differentiate upon so delicate a boundary, would seem to be bent on
pushing everything to the limit. As they lived in such a narrow town
where one has no more to see if he goes on strolling about for one hour,
and as they were capable of doing nothing better, they were trumpeting
aloud this tempura incident in quite as serious a manner as the
Russo-Japanese war. What a bunch of miserable pups! It is because they
are raised in this fashion from their boyhood that there are many punies