Chapter III

While Narihiro was smoking as usual in a room in the palace, one of the golden doors with a picture of Seiōbo painted on it slid quietly open and an attendant clad in a darkish kimono of _kihachijō_ silk and a crested black _haori_ crawled reverentially into his presence. As he did not raise his face, it was not yet evident who he was. Narihiro, as he thought the man had come on some business, rapped his pipe and said generously,

“What is it?”

“Er,--Sōshun has a request to make.”

So saying, Kōchiyama paused for a moment. Then, as he went on, he slowly raised his head and finally fixed his eyes on Narihiro’s face. He fixed them there like a snake charming its victim, overflowing the while with that peculiar amiability possessed only by men of his sort.

“It’s only this, that I should like very much to have you give me that pipe there in your hand.”

Narihiro unconsciously dropped his eyes to the pipe in his hand. At practically the same moment, Kōchiyama went on as if following him up,

“What do you say? Will you give it to me?”

Sōshun’s words had in them something that was not simply a feeling of supplication but also that sense of overbearing peculiar to the attendant class in their relations with all daimyō. In the palace, where complicated ceremony was held in high esteem, every lord of the land had to follow the guidance of the attendants. On the one hand, Narihiro was at this disadvantage. And on the other hand, for the sake of his good name, he felt that he would not like to be called miserly. Besides, a pure gold pipe was by no means a difficult thing for him to obtain. When these two motives became one, his hand of itself placed the pipe before Kōchiyama.

“Certainly I’ll give it to you. Take it along.”

“Thank you.”

Sōshun took the pipe and, raising it reverentially to his head, hastily withdrew again beyond the sliding door with Seiōbo on it. Then just as he turned to go away, somebody pulled at his sleeve from behind. He looked round, and there was Ryōtetsu with a grin on his pock-marked face pointing covetously at the pipe resting on Sōshun’s palm.

“Here, have a look,” whispered Kōchiyama, holding the bowl of the pipe under Ryōtetsu’s nose.

“You finally got it out of him, didn’t you?”

“Didn’t I tell you? It’s no use your being envious now.”

“Next I’ll go and get him to give me one.”

“H’m, do as you like.”

Kōchiyama tried the weight of the pipe once and then, with a glance toward Narihiro beyond the sliding door, again shrugged his shoulders and laughed derisively.