But when it came to things of that sort about Mōri Sensei, there were more than enough that had astonished us without our waiting to be told about them by Tamba Sensei.
“And they say Mōri Sensei, when it rains, comes to school in his foreign clothes with wooden clogs on his feet!”
“Isn’t that his lunch that always hangs from his belt wrapped in a white cloth wrapper?”
“Somebody said that when he saw him hanging to a strap in a car, his woolen gloves were full of holes.”
Gathering about Tamba Sensei, we chattered such nonsense noisily from every side. Then, perhaps drawn in by these remarks, when our voices became louder, Tamba Sensei finally spoke up gaily, and twirling his athletic cap on his finger, said thoughtlessly,
“Better yet, that hat’s an antique.”
Just at that moment, Mōri Sensei, thinking I know not what, made his appearance composedly with his small body, that antique derby hat on his head and his hand gravely fingering that same old purple necktie, at the door of the two-storied school building facing the turning bar but ten paces away. In front of the door six or seven boys, probably of the first year class, were playing pickaback or something, and when they saw him, they all scrambled to be first and saluted him politely. Mōri Sensei, standing in the sunshine on the stone steps before the door, seemed to be lifting his derby and returning their bows with a smile. When we saw this, naturally feeling a sort of shame, we all suspended our merry laughter and were silent for a moment. But with Tamba Sensei, this was