At this, Yamazaki, Iwata and Ueki knit their brows and conferred again. Now at last there was nothing for it but to make brass pipes as Ueki had proposed. Then when they were just on the verge of sending an order to Sumiyoshiya Shichibei as usual, a personal attendant came to them with a message from Narihiro.
“Our liege lord says that when he carries a silver pipe, he’s tormented by the attendants’ importunities. Henceforward you are to make his pipes of gold as heretofore.”
The three were struck dumb and knew not what to do.
VII
Kōchiyama Sōshun sourly watched the other attendants vying with one another each to get a silver pipe from Narihiro. Especially when he saw Ryōtetsu overjoyed at getting one when Narihiro went to the castle on the first of the eighth month, he went so far as to abuse him roundly and call him a fool in his usual sharp and peevish voice. It was by no means that he was not covetous of a silver pipe, but he felt his dignity too much to run after one with the other attendants. Troubled by the conflict between his pride and his avarice, he kept his eye on Narihiro’s pipe constantly, pretending indifference, the while he was saying to himself, “Wait and see. I’ll soon put their noses out of joint.”
Then one day he noticed that Narihiro was calmly puffing away at a pure gold pipe again. But it seemed that not an attendant was going to ask for it. So he stopped Ryōtetsu, who was just then passing, and slyly pointing in Narihiro’s direction with his chin, whispered,
“He’s got a pure gold one again, hasn’t he?”
When Ryōtetsu heard this, he looked at Sōshun with an amazed expression on his face.
“You’d better show some moderation in your greed. When, even with silver pipes, he’s importuned so much, why would he want to carry a pure gold pipe again?”
“Then what is it?”
“Brass, I should say.”
Sōshun shrugged his shoulders. He looked all about him carefully and did not raise his voice in laughter.
“All right, if it’s brass, let it be brass. I’m going to get it.”
“Why do you think it’s gold again?” asked Ryōtetsu, his assurance seeming to weaken.
“He knows your minds. Pretending that it’s brass, he’s brought a pure gold one. To begin with, a lord with a million koku of rice wouldn’t meekly carry a brass pipe.”
Sōshun said this rapidly and went in alone to Narihiro, leaving the astonished Ryōtetsu outside that golden sliding door on which was the picture of Seiōbo.
An hour later, Ryōtetsu met Kōchiyama in the matted corridor and asked,
“What happened, Sōshun, in that matter?”
“What do you mean, that matter?”
Ryōtetsu, sticking out his lower lip, stared into his face and said,
“Don’t sham. The matter of the pipe, of course.”
“Oh, the pipe? If it’s the pipe you mean, I’ll give it to you.”
Kōchiyama took a shiny yellow pipe out of the bosom of his kimono and, throwing it into Ryōtetsu’s face before he had more than caught a glimpse of it, walked hastily away.
Ryōtetsu, rubbing the place where the pipe had hit him, grumblingly picked it up from where it had fallen and, looking at it, found it to be an elegant piece of workmanship with the plum-blossom-and-spear-point crest scattered over it and made of—brass! With a gesture of detestation, he threw it down on the mats again and, lifting a foot enclosed in a one-toed shoe of white cloth, went with exaggeration through the motion of stamping on it.
VIII
After that the attendants’ begging of pipes from Narihiro came to an abrupt end. This was because Sōshun and Ryōtetsu proved to them that the pipe he carried was made of brass.
Then Narihiro’s three faithful retainers, who had temporarily deceived him with a brass pipe made to look like gold, after conferring together again, commanded Sumiyoshiya Shichibei to make a pure gold pipe. It had the plum-blossom-and-spear-point crest scattered over it and did not differ in the least from the one Kōchiyama had received in the beginning. In his heart looking forward to the importunities of the attendants, Narihiro went triumphantly to the castle with the pipe.
But not a single attendant came to ask him for it. Even Kōchiyama, who had already begged two of them out of him, took but a single glance at this one and, with a slight bow, went away. The other daimyō present maintained silence and, of course, never asked to see it. This seemed strange to Narihiro.
No, it was not just strange. In the end, it made him vaguely uneasy. So when he saw Kōchiyama coming again, he spoke first himself this time.
“Sōshun, don’t you want me to give you a pipe?”
“No, thank you, I’ve already had one.”
Sōshun probably thought to make sport of Narihiro. There was a sharpness in the way these polite words were spoken.
When Narihiro heard them, his face clouded with displeasure. The flavor of his Nagasaki tobacco was no longer sweet in his mouth. For suddenly he felt that the power of his million koku, of
