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Show 37 for what, in Naka Oji, amounted to his own fief. Far from Kyoto and Tokyo ha was his own lord, the only threat his fellow-officer across the bay, sitting in windswept, duckboarderi, superior rank. The Major had been raised in the South as a farm-boy; simplicity lay daep in his soul, and made him subtly uneasy by the Colonel's urbane, cynical wit. "What tha Colonel does, Captain, is tha Cofnel's business." Ths grsat facs glarsd, ths eyas dark. "What I do's mine." "Yes, sir. Absolutsly, sir." Ths Major's gaze held Sid's facs for a moment; than it want round the room, one by one, as if challenging. How's thsm apples, it seamed to say, but as each officer responded with innocent stars or avsrtsd syss, ths mood bsgan to subsids. Hs bsgan to bs ashamsd of his own rsaction, and cast around for rslease. "Anything mors, Captain?" "Nothing at ths momsnt, sir." At which point ths Major sat up, clsarad his throat, and began his psroration. The Major's mestings had a classic form: a quiet overture, a swelling development, a crescendo toward wrath, a breaking of the storm and, at last, the dissolution into serenity, all passion spsnt. At ths momsnt hs thought it best to omit the next-to-last, and embarksd on his final colloquy, the subject of which was Virtue. Ha spoke of "propsr inspsction bsfore using Equipment," of "adequate measures be-fora embarking," of "safeguarding woman and childrsn." Ths |