Читать книгу Kibun Daizin; Or, From Shark-Boy to Merchant Prince онлайн

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Then the girl, who remembered what had been told her a little while before, said: “Father, his family was very poor, and, as his father was laid up on his sick-bed, he sold those dragon-flies and bought medicine or a little rice for the family. He told me so.”

As she was listening to this conversation, tears stood in the mother’s eyes, and she said: “He is really a model boy, is he not? I can’t possibly let him go to sea.”

The master, who was much of the same way of thinking as his wife, answered, “Of course, I have been persuading him to give up his idea”; and, turning to Bunkichi, said, “Yes, do give it up, my boy.”

And the girl, seemingly with the intention of inspiring the boy with dread and deterring him from his purpose, remarked solemnly, “Oh, it is dreadful to be swallowed by the shark on going to sea!”

Bunkichi, having once determined, was immovable. “Sir, trading to a merchant is the same that fighting is to a knight. It has been ever regarded honorable in a knight that he should hazard his life many a time, even in his early youth. If fate be against him, he will be put to death by his enemy. The knights of old faced the dangerous issues of life or death as often as they went out to battle. As they attained to renown by passing through these ordeals, so, too, must the merchant who aspires after a leading position not shrink from braving many dangers in his life. Sir, methinks the present is the opportunity given me to try my hand; and if fate sides with me and I succeed in killing the wanizame, in future I shall have courage to venture out on other great undertakings. If one begins to be nervous at the outset, one will go on being nervous forever; but there is no fear, I think, for a man who is ready to sacrifice even his own life.”