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One afternoon, as I indulged in my customary nap on the veranda, I fell into a dream and dreamed I was a tiger. I ordered the master to bring me fowl. With some trepidation, he promptly complied. Meitei dropped by. I said I wanted goose and told him to go to the Goose Pot and get me an order. Meitei, up to his usual shenanigans, assured me that picked radish, if eaten on seasoned rice crackers, tastes just like goose. I opened my mouth wide and shook him head to foot with a mighty roar. His face lost its color. He informed me that the Goose Pot in Yamashita had shut its doors, then asked how best to proceed. In that case, I replied, I'd settle for beef. I ordered him off to Nishikawa's for a cut of sirloin on the double. I threatened to devour him on the spot if he didn't hurry, and he bolted off with his tail between his legs. My body was large now, filling the veranda as I sprawled myself out. As I waited on Meitei's return, a loud voice rang through the house. I woke from my dream and returned to myself, missing out on my beef in the process. Just then the master, instead of cowering timidly before me, comes flying out of the bathroom, planting his foot into my ribs in the process. Before I know what has happened, he's slipped on his garden clogs, dashed through the wicket gate, and is off toward Rakuunkan. Having suddenly shrunk from tiger back to cat, I feel small and awkward. With the master's menacing look and the throbbing pain in my ribs, my tiger illusion readily crumbles. At the same time, if the master is finally engaging his foes in all-out battle, I'm not about to miss it. Ignoring the ache in my ribs, I slip out the back and follow in his wake. "Stop! Thief!" he bellows out. Up ahead, a sturdy lad of 18 or 19, sporting his school cap, is vaulting the lattice fence. "Too late," I think, as the lad flees, with the swiftness of Idaten, toward the safety of his home camp. The master, pleased with the effect of his cry of "Thief!," yells out again at the top of his lungs, all the while continuing his pursuit. However, to pursue any further he has to cross the fence. If he crosses the fence and continues on, it will be he himself who's intruding. As I've already related, the master is a first-rate hothead. Once riled, he's perfectly ready to intrude himself in pursuit of an intruder. Showing no sign of relenting, he races as far as the fence. Just one step now from intruding into the intruder's domain, his foes dispatch a general. Sporting a poor attempt at a mustache, this general ambles up to the fence. The two of them talk across this line of demarcation. Their exchange, quite mundane in its nature, goes as follows.