which was an heirloom in our family for many generations, was lost at
that time. As it is of great value in my eyes, I do wish that, if you
set no special store by it, you would have the great kindness to
return it to me."

"That is a very easy matter, and no more than what one friend should
do by another. Pray take it."

Upon this Yukiyé gratefully took the sword, and having carried it home
put it carefully away.

At the beginning of the ensuing year Matazayémon fell sick and died,
and Yukiyé, mourning bitterly for the loss of his good friend, and
anxious to requite the favour which he had received in the matter of
his father's sword, did many acts of kindness to the dead man's
son--a young man twenty-two years of age, named Matagorô.

Now this Matagorô was a base-hearted cur, who had begrudged the sword
that his father had given to Yukiyé, and complained publicly and often
that Yukiyé had never made any present in return; and in this way
Yukiyé got a bad name in my Lord's palace as a stingy and illiberal
man.

But Yukiyé had a son, called Kazuma, a youth sixteen years of age, who
served as one of the Prince's pages of honour. One evening, as he and
one of his brother pages were talking together, the latter said--

"Matagorô is telling everybody that your father accepted a handsome
sword from him and never made him any present in return, and people
are beginning to gossip about it."