Pray, have you any friends in that city?"

"No, sir, I have no friends there; but as in two years I shall be able
to return to my own country, and re-enter my lord's service, I thought
during that time to engage in trade and live as a common wardsman."

"Indeed, that's a poor prospect! However, if you will allow me, I will
do all that is in my power to assist you. Pray excuse the liberty I am
taking in making such a proposal."

Jiuyemon warmly thanked Kajiki Tozayemon for his kindness; and so they
reached Osaka without further adventures.

Jiuyemon, who had secreted in his girdle the two hundred and fifty
ounces which he had brought with him from home, bought a small house,
and started in trade as a vendor of perfumes, tooth-powder, combs, and
other toilet articles; and Kajiki Tozayemon, who treated him with
great kindness, and rendered him many services, prompted him, as he
was a single man, to take to himself a wife. Acting upon this advice,
he married a singing-girl, called O Hiyaku.[42]

[Footnote 42: The O before women's names signifies "_Imperial_," and
is simply an honorific.]

Now this O Hiyaku, although at first she seemed very affectionately
disposed towards Jiuyemon, had been, during the time that she was a
singer, a woman of bad and profligate character; and at this time
there was in Osaka a certain wrestler, named Takasegawa Kurobei, a
very handsome man, with whom O Hiyaku fell desperately in love; so
that at last, being by nature a passionate woman, she became
unfaithful to Jiuyemon. The latter, little suspecting that anything
was amiss, was in the habit of spending his evenings at the house of
his patron Kajiki Tozayemon, whose son, a youth of eighteen, named
Tonoshin, conceived a great friendship for Jiuyemon, and used
constantly to invite him to play a game at checkers; and it was on
these occasions that O Hiyaku, profiting by her husband's absence,
used to arrange her meetings with the wrestler Takasegawa.

One evening, when Jiuyemon, as was his wont, had gone out to play at
checkers with Kajiki Tonoshin, O Hiyaku took advantage of the occasion
to go and fetch the wrestler, and invite him to a little feast; and as
they were enjoying themselves over their wine, O Hiyaku said to him--

"Ah! Master Takasegawa, how wonderfully chance favours us! and how
pleasant these stolen interviews are! How much nicer still it would
be if we could only be married. But, as long as Jiuyemon is in the
way, it is