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80 HONDA THE SAMURAI.
Was he born under a lucky star? I suppose so.
This we know :
he was born within the castle limits.
On the top of the castle-towers of the citadel, at the
corners, one sees a pair of rampant grampuses or
horse-dolphins with tails high in air and standing on
their lower lips. To be born within sight
of the
shachihoko, or dolphin-tails, is an honor to a Japanese
baby. He is much like our babies, in whose
mouths we imagine silver spoons. When the small
boys in Fukui tried to stand on their heads, or turn
somersaults, they called the game playing shachihoko,
or the grampus-game.
In the chief city of Owari, the scales of this
castle-fish were made of solid gold, and one of the
stories which the boys in the Rai family often
heard
was how a famous robber, named Ishikawa Goydmon,
tried to steal them. Set on the top of the lofty
castle towers, which were guarded continually by
vigilant sentinels, how could the bold robber succeed?
Should he swim through the water of the
moat, and climb the face of the wall? Even then,
how could he get up to the pinnacle of the towers ?
Should he try to bribe the faithful servants of the
lord of Owari to help him ? No. This he could
not do.
He made a kite twenty-feet square, of
many thicknesses
of tough paper, with strong bobtails of rope,
and on a dark and windy night got two accomplices
with a windlass and rope, paid out from a hand-cart
moored to a post, to raise the kite and pay out the
rope.
Putting his burglar's tools in his belt, and his