The Master was accustomed not to this new equality but to old-fashioned
prerogatives, and there had been ugly rumors when the match with Wu of
the Fifth Rank had fallen behind schedule; and so it would seem that, in
challenging him to this final match, his juniors had imposed the strictest
rules to restrain his dictatorial tendencies. The rules for the match had not
been set by the Master and Otaké. High-ranking members of the
Association had conducted an elimination tournament to decide who would
be the challenger, and the code had been drawn up before it began. Otaké,
representing the Association, was only trying to make the Master honor the
code.
Because of the Master’s illness and for other reasons, numbers of
disagreements arose, and Otaké’s manner, as he repeatedly threatened to
forfeit the match, carried suggestions of an inability to understand the
courtesies due to an elder, a want of sympathy for a sick man, and a
rationalism that somehow missed the point. It caused considerable worry
for the managers, and always the technical arguments seemed to be ranged
on Otaké’s side. There was a possibility, moreover, that giving an inch
meant giving a mile, and a possibility too that the slackening of spirit in
giving the inch would mean defeat. Such things must not be permitted in so
important a contest. Knowing that he had to win, Otaké could not surrender
to the whims of his older adversary. It even seemed to me that, when
anything suggesting the usual arbitrariness arose, Otaké’s insistence on the
letter of the law was the more determined for the fact that his opponent was
the Master.
The rules were of course very different from those for an ordinary match.
Yet it should have been possible to fight without mercy on the board even
while making concessions in matters of time and place. There are players
capable of such flexibility. The Master perhaps found himself with the
wrong adversary.
