Rain or shine, snowstorm or bloodbath, the mail had to go through.

Chapter 2

His name was Remo, and he had nothing against the Japanese.

He felt certain on this point, so he said it aloud. "I have nothing against the Japanese as a people or a race."

A squeaky voice hissed, "So you have forgotten Pearl Harbor?"

"Before my time," said Remo.

"What about the Bataan death march?"

"Same answer. That was an earlier generation."

"The dead cry out for retribution, and you say this?"

"Peace was declared fifty years ago. We're not at war anymore," Remo said reasonably.

"Then why did they send their vicious samurai to these shores intent upon slaughter and maiming?" asked the Master of Sinanju.

"For crying out loud, Chiun, you only lost a nail!"

"You who have no fingernails to speak of may say this. It is nothing to you to be deprived of a nail. You have never achieved correct nail length."

Remo had no answer for that. He sat on a round tatami mat in the bell-tower meditation room of his home. Remo was looking out a window. On the other side of the white-walled square room, the Master of Sinanju sat at the opposite window, also gazing out. They were supposed to be meditating. Instead, they were arguing.

The silence lasted long enough that Remo thought he was going to get some peace. As usual, he was wrong.

"And why am I forced to endure this interminable wait?" Chiun suddenly wailed. "Why am I forbidden to rend Japanese limb from limb?"

If there was a good answer to that, Remo didn't have it, so he kept quiet.

At length Chiun spoke in a more subdued squeak. "What about their hideous automobiles, which clog the streets of this land you love so well, filling the very air you breathe with their stench?" he asked.