“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 pockmarked 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.
IV
As for Narihiro, who had been wheedled out of his pipe, he was not so unhappy as you might suppose. This was evident from the fact that when he retired from the castle, the samurai attending him were surprised to find an expression on his face which seemed to indicate an unusually pleasant frame of mind.
He felt a sort of satisfaction at having given the pipe to Sōshun. Perhaps this satisfaction was greater in degree than that he had felt when he had the pipe. But this was most natural. Because, as has already been explained, his pride in the pipe lay not in his fondness for the thing itself. Really he was proud of his million koku in the form of the pipe. Wherefore, just as his vanity was satisfied by the using of this pure gold pipe, would it not be the more fully satisfied by the giving of it willingly to another? Even if he was somewhat governed by outside circumstances when he gave it to Kōchiyama, his satisfaction was not the least bit lessened by that fact.
So when Narihiro returned to his residence in Hongo, he pleasantly said to the retainers nearest him,
“I gave the attendant Sōshun my pipe.”
V
When Narihiro’s household heard this, everybody was surprised at his generosity. But just three men, Yamazaki Kanzaemon, chamberlain, Iwata Kuranosuke, keeper of the stores, and Ueki Kurouemon, treasurer, involuntarily knit their brows.
Of course the cost of one pure gold pipe was nothing to the finances of the Kaga Clan. But if one had to be given to an attendant every time Narihiro went to the castle on festival days, and the first, the fifteenth, and the twenty-eighth of every month, it would entail an alarming expenditure. There was no denying that the taxes might have to be increased to pay for the pipes. That would be terrible, and the three loyal samurai were one in their anticipatory fear.
Therefore they decided to hold a council at once and devise remedial measures. But of course there was only one possible remedial measure, and that was to change entirely the material of which the pipe was made and use some metal that the attendants would not covet. But Iwata and Ueki differed in their opinions as to what metal should be used.
Iwata said it would be derogatory to the honor of their lord to use any metal cheaper than silver. Ueki thought that, if they wanted to put a stop to the avarice of the attendants, nothing could be better than the use of brass. To regard honor now was temporizing. Each stuck to his own opinion and argued for it hotly.
Then the experienced Yamazaki said that there was the greatest reason in both opinions and offered a compromise, suggesting that they might try silver first, and then, if the attendants were still covetous, it would not be too late to use brass afterwards. Of course neither could make objection to this. So the council at last decided to order Sumiyoshiya Shichibei to make a silver pipe.
VI
Thereafter Narihiro carried a silver pipe with him every time he went to the castle. It, too, was a most elaborate pipe with the plum-blossom-and-spear-point crest scattered over it.
Of course he was not so proud of the new pipe as he had been of the old one. In the first place, he seldom took it in his hand even when he was conversing with others. Even when he did, he put it away again immediately. This was because the same Nagasaki tobacco did not taste so good to him as it had when he
