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at length rose to depart, when Kisaburo quietly replaced the money in his pocket-book. “Hey!” quoth the eel-man “I thought that money was for me; why don’t you give it to me?” “Not so” was the reply; “You have charged me for the smell of your eels;—I pay you back with the sight of my money.” ’—Japan Mail, Nov. 28.
It was pointed out by a writer in the Japan Daily Herald of the 5th December, 1874, that the counterpart of this story is to be found greatly elaborated in Rabelais in the 37th chapter of the 3rd Book. The Rabelaisian version is as follows.
“At Paris, in the roast-meat cookery of the Petit-Chastelet before the cook shop of one of the roast-meat-sellers of that lane, a certain hungry porter was eating his bread, after he had by parcels kept it a while above the reek and steam of a fat goose on the spit, turning at a great fire, and found it, so besmoked with the vapour, to be savoury; which the cook observing, took notice, till after having ravined his penny loaf, whereof no morsel had been unsmokified, he was about decamping and going away. But, by your leave, as the fellow thought to have departed thence scot-free, the master-cook laid hold upon him by the gorget, and demanded payment for the smoke of his roast-meat. The porter answered, That he had sustained no loss at all,—that by that he had done there was no diminution made of the flesh,—that he had taken nothing of his, and that therefore he was not indebted to him in anything. As for the smoke in question, that, although he had not been there, it would howsoever have been evaporated: besides, that before that time it had never been seen nor heard, that roast-meat-smoke was sold upon the streets of Paris. The cook hereto replied, That he was not obliged nor any way bound to feed and nourish for nought a porter whom he had never seen before, with the smoke of his roast-meat, and thereupon swore, that if he would not forthwith content and satisfy him with present payment for the repast which he had thereby got, that he would take his crooked staves from off his back; which, instead of having loads thereafter laid upon
