"Cut your finger, then," he challenged. And with "Finger nothing! Here
goes!" I cut my thumb slant-wise. Fortunately the knife was small and
the bone of the thumb hard enough, so the thumb is still there, but the
scar will be there until my death.

About twenty steps to the east edge of our garden, there was a
moderate-sized vegetable yard, rising toward the south, and in the
centre of which stood a chestnut tree which was dearer to me than life.
In the season when the chestnuts were ripe, I used to slip out of the
house from the back door early in the morning to pick up the chestnuts
which had fallen during the night, and eat them at the school. On the
west side of the vegetable yard was the adjoining garden of a pawn shop
called Yamashiro-ya. This shopkeeper's son was a boy about 13 or 14
years old named Kantaro. Kantaro was, it happens, a mollycoddle.
Nevertheless he had the temerity to come over the fence to our yard and
steal my chestnuts.

One certain evening I hid myself behind a folding-gate of the fence and
caught him in the act. Having his retreat cut off he grappled with me in
desperation. He was about two years older than I, and, though
weak-kneed, was physically the stronger. While I wallopped him, he
pushed his head against my breast and by chance it slipped inside my
sleeve. As this hindered the free action of my arm, I tried to shake him
loose, though, his head dangled the further inside, and being no longer
able to stand the stifling combat, he bit my bare arm. It was painful. I
held him fast against the fence, and by a dexterous foot twist sent him
down flat on his back. Kantaro broke the fence and as the ground
belonging to Yamashiro-ya was about six feet lower than the vegetable
yard, he fell headlong to his own territory with a thud. As he rolled
off he tore away the sleeve in which his head had been enwrapped, and my