riyos (about £28), and bade him collect all the cold macaroni to be
found in the neighbouring cook-shops and pile it up in front of the
tea-house. So Gombei went home, and, collecting Chôbei's apprentices,
sent them out in all directions to buy the macaroni. Jiurozayémon all
this while was thinking of the pleasure he would have in laughing at
Chôbei for offering him a mean and paltry present; but when, by
degrees, the macaroni began to be piled mountain-high around the
tea-house, he saw that he could not make a fool of Chôbei, and went
home discomfited.

[Footnote 25: _Tôken_, a nickname given to Gombei, after a savage dog
that he killed. As a Chônin, or wardsman, he had no surname.]

It has already been told how Shirai Gompachi was befriended and helped
by Chôbei.[26] His name will occur again in this story.

[Footnote 26: See the story of Gompachi and Komurasaki.]

At this time there lived in the province of Yamato a certain Daimio,
called Honda Dainaiki, who one day, when surrounded by several of his
retainers, produced a sword, and bade them look at it and say from
what smith's workshop the blade had come.

"I think this must be a Masamuné blade," said one Fuwa Banzayémon.

"No," said Nagoya Sanza, after examining the weapon attentively, "this
certainly is a Muramasa."[27]

[Footnote 27: The swords of Muramasa, although so finely tempered that
they are said to cut hard iron as though it were a melon, have the