family, and he therefore begged that his family might be spared while he himself would willingly submit to the severest punishment. The officers were greatly struck by his manly spirit and released him. They restored to his son Rihei’s property which they had confiscated and made him follow his father’s trade. Rihei himself renounced the world and peacefully ended his days in a temple closely connected with the Asano family. All the other incidents of the play, such as the story of Kanpei and Okaru, the marriage of Konami and Rikiya, and the death of Honzo, are more or less connected with the main plot of the play; but the story of Amanoya Rihei, who appears in the play under the name of Amakawaya Gihei, is the least connected. The tenth act was written to exhibit the manly spirit of a merchant and to show that even among the mercantile class were men who could help the retainers in their great undertaking. Amanoya Rihei was, in fact, a fine example of the _otokodate_, to whom reference has been made in a former page, and his character, as it appears in the play, has been the boast of his class. It is a vindication of the commoners by writers who belonged to that class. THE REVENGE. The loyal retainers willingly submitted to every hardship and privation in their efforts to carry out their long-cherished plan of revenge. The league which was originally composed of more than a hundred persons, gradually dwindled by defection to less than half the number, and made more onerous the labours of the loyal men. Some of them became doctors, others taught fencing and similar arts, and others again turned rice-dealers and merchants; but they devoted all their energies, so far as they could do so without arousing suspicion, to watching the enemy’s movements and keeping in communication with one another. The labour and trouble they took to obtain information regarding the interior of Kira’s mansion was such as would hardly be believed in these days. One of them who was versed in the art of tea-making, obtained news from time to time of the goings-on in the enemy’s mansion from a professor of that art who was patronised by Kira. He ascertained from him that there was to be a tea-party at the mansion on the fourteenth day of the twelfth month of the fifteenth year of Genroku (which corresponded to the 20th January, 1703), On that night, then, their enemy was sure to be at home; and the retainers decided to carry out their long-planned scheme early the following morning. From about two o’clock they began to gather at their trysting-place; and at about four o’clock they all arrived in the snow under a clear moonlight in front of Kira’s mansion. Here they divided into two companies; one under Oishi made for the front gate and the other under Yoshida Chuzaemon for the back gate on the west side. They entered the mansion and making the capture of their enemy Kira their sole object, they only cut down those who offered resistance. They