The second session at the Kōyōkan was to have begun at ten. Because of
a misunderstanding it was delayed until two. I was an onlooker, outside it
all; but the consternation of the managers was quite apparent. Virtually the
whole of the Association had rushed to the scene, I gathered, and was
meeting in another room.
I had arrived just as Otaké was arriving, a large suitcase in his hand.
“Why the luggage?” I asked.
“Yes,” he replied, in the abrupt manner that was his before a session.
“We leave for Hakoné today. To be sealed in for the rest of the match.”
I had been told that the contestants would go directly from the Kōyōkan
to a Hakoné inn. Yet the proportions of Otaké’s baggage rather startled me.
The Master had made no arrangements for the move.
“Oh was that the idea?” he said. “In that case I should call a barber.”
This was a bit deflating for Otaké, who had come all prepared to be away
from home till the end of the match, in perhaps three months’ time. And the
Master was in violation of contract. Otaké’s annoyance was not soothed by
the fact that no one seemed quite sure how clearly the terms had been
communicated to the Master. They should have been solemn and
inviolable, and that they were broken so soon naturally left Otaké uneasy
about the later course of the match. The managers had erred in not
explaining them to the Master and explaining them again. No one was
prepared to challenge him, however. He was in a class apart, and so the
obvious solution was to cajole the young Otaké into continuing play at the
Kōyōkan. Otaké proved rather stubborn.
