Page:Soseki - Botchan (1918).djvu/264

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BOTCHAN


thing at your bidding.”

I parted from Porcupine then. If Red Shirt was really instrumental in bringing us two into the trouble as Porcupine supposed, he certainly deserves to be called down. Red Shirt outranks us in brainy work. And there is no other course open but to appeal to physical force. No wonder we never see the end of war in the world. Among individuals, it is, after all, the question of superiority of the fist.

Next day I impatiently glanced over the paper, the arrival of which I had been waiting with eagerness, but not a correction of the news or even a line of retraction could be found. I pressed the matter on Badger when I went to the school, and he said it might probably appear tomorrow. On that “tomorrow” a line of retraction was printed in tiny types. But the paper did not make any correction of the story. I called the attention of Badger to the fact, and he replied that that was about all that could be done under the circums-

–250–