Tales of Old Japan - Maybe You Like It

and are no good whatever to their master. You see, you only have to
spend your money upon your own son."
Then another gentleman said—
"Well, I think that to spend money upon your shop-people is no such
great hardship after all. Now I've been in something like trouble lately. I
can't get a penny out of my customers. One man owes me fifteen ounces;
another owes me twenty-five ounces. Really that is enough to make a
man feel as if his heart was worn away."
When he had finished speaking, an old gentleman, who was sitting
opposite, playing with his fan, said—
"Certainly, gentlemen, your grievances are not without cause; still, to
be perpetually asked for a little money, or to back a bill, by one's relations
or friends, and to have a lot of hangers-on dependent on one, as I
have, is a worse case still."
But before the old gentleman had half finished speaking, his neighbour
called out—
"No, no; all you gentlemen are in luxury compared to me. Please listen
to what I have to suffer. My wife and my mother can't hit it off anyhow.
All day long they're like a couple of cows butting at one another with
their horns. The house is as unendurable as if it were full of smoke. I often
think it would be better to send my wife back to her village; but then
I've got two little children. If I interfere and take my wife's part, my
mother gets low-spirited. If I scold my wife, she says that I treat her so
brutally because she's not of the same flesh and blood; and then she
hates me. The trouble and anxiety are beyond description: I'm like a post
stuck up between them."
And so they all twaddled away in chorus, each about his own troubles.
At last one of the gentlemen, recollecting himself, said—
"Well, gentlemen, certainly the deer ought to be roaring; but we've
been so engrossed with our conversation, that we don't know whether
we have missed hearing them or not."
With this he pulled aside the sliding-door of the verandah and looked
out, and, lo and behold! a great big stag was standing perfectly silent in
front of the garden.
"Hullo!" said the man to the deer, "what's this? Since you've been there
all the time, why did you not roar?"
Then the stag answered, with an innocent face—
"Oh, I came here to listen to the lamentations of you gentlemen."
Isn't that a funny story?
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