ay his debts to pleasure and gambling.
Severely reprimanded, Isuke opened his eyes in astonishment.
"Respectfully heard and understood: has the income been reduced? But
that does not affect the share of Isuke. He keeps well within his
limit." This was the first intimation Kwaiba had of Isuke's views as to
his role of physician. In those days the doctor usually had the pleasure
of performance, not of payment. Moreover with the great--like
Kwaiba--performance was carried out at a distance; the pulse felt by the
vibration of a string attached to the wrist, or at best by passing the
hand under the coverlet. For a time Kwaiba's strange medical attendant
devoted himself to his more prosaic duties of _chu[u]gen_. Within ten
days his master ransomed him from a resort in Shinagawa; price, ten
_ryo[u]_. A few weeks later he was heard from at a gambler's resort in
Shinjuku. The note was peremptory--and for fifty _ryo[u]_. Kwaiba lost
all patience. Moreover, just then he held office very favourable for
bringing this matter to an issue. But he must have Isuke; and have him
in Yotsuya. As usual payment secured the presence of a repentant Isuke,
full of promises of amendment. Kwaiba smiled, used soft words; and
shortly after Isuke was confined to the jail on a trumped up charge of
theft from another _chu[u]gen_. Kwaiba, then acting as magistrate for
the district, had full power. On notification he assured Isuke of a
speedy release. This the unhappy man secured through a poisoned meal,
following a long fast. He died raving, and cursing his master. No one
heard him but his two jailers, who considered him crazy--this man of bad
record.

Years had passed, but Isuke merely lay dormant in the mind of Kwaiba.
Then came up the affair of Tamiya--the threatening curse of O'Iwa San.
Iemon's counsel lasted but over night. With soberness and morning Kwaiba
straightway showed the results of wrecked nerves and distorted
imagination. Sleepless nights he now visited on his friends by an
increasing irritability. The first few days of this state of Kwaiba were
laughable. He spoke of O'Iwa San; not freely, rather with reticence. He
made his references as of jesting expectation of her advent. Then he
passed to boisterous tricks; springing out on the maids from dark
corners or the turns in the corridors. Alarmed by these manifestations
of the old man--not entirely strange, for he was a terror to the female
element in his household--they soon noted that the