Page:Soseki - Botchan (1918).djvu/262

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BOTCHAN


from to-day. Then he said that it was his trick to have us invited and mixed in the fight yesterday,–“Aren’t you on to that yet?” Well, I was not. Porcupine was quite a Grobian but he was endowed, I was impressed, with a better brain than I.

“He made us mix into the trouble, and slipped behind and contrived to have the paper publish the story. What a devil!”

“Even the newspaper in the band wagon of Red Shirt? That surprises me. But would the paper listen to Red Shirt so easily?”

“Wouldn’t it, though. Darn easy thing if one has friends in the paper.

“Has he any?”

“Suppose he hasn’t, still that’s easy. Just tell lies and say such and such are facts, and the paper will take it up.”

“A startling revelation, this. If that was really a trick of Red Shirt, we’re likely to be discharged on account of this affair.”

“Quite likely we may be discharged.”

–248–