goes.  If you think attentively, you will see the allusion.  Those who boast about my warehouse, my house, my farm, my daughter, my wife, hawking about this “my” of theirs like pedlers, let there once come trouble and war in the world, and, for all their vain-gloriousness, they will be as helpless as turtles.  Let them be thankful that peace is established throughout the world.  The humane Government reaches to every frontier:  the officials of every department keep watch night and day.  When a man sleeps under his roof at night, how can he say that it is thanks to himself that he stretches his limbs in slumber?  You go your rounds to see whether the shutters are closed and the front door fast, and, having taken every precaution, you lay yourself down to rest in peace:  and what a precaution after all!  A board, four-tenths of an inch thick, planed down front and rear until it is only two-tenths of an inch thick.  A fine precaution, in very truth!—­a precaution which may be blown down with a breath.  Do you suppose such a thing as that would frighten a thief from breaking in?  This is the state of the case.  Here are men who, by the benevolence and virtue of their rulers, live in a delightful world, and yet, forgetting the mysterious providence that watches over them, keep on singing their own praises.  Selfish egotists!

[Footnote 89:  The younger brother of Minamoto no Yoritomo, who first established the government of the Shoguns.  The battle of Ichi-no-tani took place in the year A.D. 1184.]

“My property amounts to five thousand ounces of silver.  I may sleep with my eyes turned up, and eat and take my pleasure, if I live for five hundred or for seven hundred years.  I have five warehouses and twenty-five houses.  I hold other people’s bills for fifteen hundred ounces of silver.”  So he dances a fling[90] for joy, and has no fear lest poverty should come upon him for fifty or a hundred years.  Minds like frogs, with eyes in the middle of their backs!  Foolhardy thoughts!  A trusty castle of defence indeed!  How little can it be depended upon!  And when such men are sleeping quietly, how can they tell that they may not be turned into those big torches we were talking about just now, or that a great earthquake will not be upheaved?  These are the chances of this fitful world.  With regard to the danger of too great reliance, I have a little tale to tell you.  Be so good as to wake up from your drowsiness, and listen attentively.

[Footnote 90:  Literally, “a dance of the Province of Tosa.”]

There is a certain powerful shell-fish, called the Sazaye, with a very strong operculum.  Now this creature, if it hears that there is any danger astir, shuts up its shell from within, with a loud noise, and thinks itself perfectly safe.  One day a Tai and another fish, lost in envy at this, said—­

“What a strong castle this is of yours, Mr. Sazaye!  When you shut up your lid from within, nobody can so much as point a finger at you.  A capital figure you make, sir.”