"Yes, Sir," I said, "I'm night watch to-night, and as I am night watch I
will return to the school and stay there overnight, sure." With this
parting shot, I left him where we met. Coming then to the cross-streets
of Katamachi, I met Porcupine. This is a narrow place, I tell you.
Whenever one ventures out, he is sure to come across some familiar face.

"Say, aren't you night watch?" he hallooed, and I said "Yes, I am." "Tis
wrong for night watch to leave his post at his pleasure," he added, and
to this I blurted out with a bold front; "Nothing wrong at all. It is
wrong not to go out."

"Say, old man, your slap-dash is going to the limit. Wouldn't look well
for the principal or the head teacher to see you out like this."

The submissive tone of his remark was contrary to Porcupine as I had
known him so far, so I cut him short by saying:

"I have met the principal just now. Why, he approved my taking a stroll
about the town. Said it would be hard on night watch unless he took a
walk when it is hot." Then I made a bee-line for the school.

Soon it was night. I called the janitor to my room and had a chat for
about two hours. I grew tired of this, and thought I would get into bed
anyway, even if I could not sleep. I put on my night shirt, lifted the
mosquito-net, rolled off the red blanket and fell down flat on my back
with a bang. The making of this bumping noise when I go to bed is my
habit from my boyhood. "It is a bad habit," once declared a student of a
law school who lived on the ground floor, and I on the second, when I
was in the boarding house at Ogawa-machi, Kanda-ku, and who brought
complaints to my room in person. Students of law schools, weaklings as