somewhere about the same part of the country described in the story,
while he himself was born and brought up in Tokyo.

It may be added that the original is written in an autobiographical
style. It is profusely interladed with spicy, catchy colloquials patent
to the people of Tokyo for the equals of which we may look to the
rattling speeches of notorious Chuck Conners of the Bowery of New York.
It should be frankly stated that much difficulty was experienced in
getting the corresponding terms in English for those catchy expressions.
Strictly speaking, some of them have no English equivalents. Care has
been exercised to select what has been thought most appropriate in the
judgment or the translator in converting those expressions into English
but some of them might provoke disapproval from those of the "cultured"
class with "refined" ears. The slangs in English in this translation
were taken from an American magazine of world-wide reputation editor of
which was not afraid to print of "damn" when necessary, by scorning the
timid, conventional way of putting it as "d--n." If the propriety of
printing such short ugly words be questioned, the translator is sorry to
say that no means now exists of directly bringing him to account for he
met untimely death on board the Lusitania when it was sunk by the German
submarine.

Thanks are due to Mr. J. R. Kennedy, General Manager, and Mr. Henry
Satoh, Editor-in-Chief, both of the Kokusai Tsushin-sha (the
International News Agency) of Tokyo and a host of personal friends of
the translator whose untiring assistance and kind suggestions have made
the present translation possible. Without their sympathetic interests,
this translation may not have seen the daylight.

Tokyo, September, 1918.