then excused from this night watch. It was not fair. They made
regulations to suit their convenience and seemed to regard all this as
a matter of course. How could they be so brazen faced as this! I was
greatly dissatisfied relative to this question, but according to the
opinion of Porcupine, protests by a single person, with what insistency
they may be made, will not be heard. They ought to be heard whether
they are made by one person or by two if they are just. Porcupine
remonstrated with me by quoting "Might is right" in English. I did not
catch his point, so I asked him again, and he told me that it meant the
right of the stronger. If it was the right of the stronger I had known
it for long, and did not require Porcupine explain that to me at this
time. The right of the stronger was a question different from that of
the night watch. Who would agree that Badger and Red Shirt were the
stronger? But argument or no argument, the turn of this night watch at
last fell upon me. Being quite fastidious, I never enjoyed sound sleep
unless I slept comfortably in my own bedding. From my childhood, I
never stayed out overnight. When I did not find sleeping under the roof
of my friends inviting, night watch in the school, you may be sure, was
still worse. However repulsive, if this was a part of the forty yen a
month, there was no alternative. I had to do it.

To remain alone in the school after the faculty and students had gone
home, was something particularly awkward. The room for the night watch
was in the rear of the school building at the west end of the dormitory.
I stepped inside to see how it was, and finding it squarely facing the
setting sun, I thought I would melt. In spite of autumn having already
set in, the hot spell still lingered, quite in keeping with the
dilly-dally atmosphere of the country. I ordered the same kind of meal
as served for the students, and finished my supper. The meal was
unspeakably poor. It was a wonder they could subsist on such miserable