Two Japanese, each of medium height, each with a heavily wrinkled face, small clipped white mustache and a nearly bald head, put on their sleeping kimonos in the official residence of the Premier of Japan one dark and snowy night last week, laid their heads upon pillows of hard wood and went to sleep.
Sprinting through the snow shortly before 5 A. M. went a group of resolute figures in the mustard-colored uniform of the Japanese Army, lugging with them a few machine guns. They dashed through the Premier's gates and with rifle butts stove in the Premier's door. Rushing in they found a Japanese of medium height with a heavily wrinkled face, small clipped white mustache and nearly bald head whose sleeping kimono flapped about his knees in the wintry gusts from the broken door.
Screamed one of the mustards: "Premier Admiral Keisuke Okada, we have come to execute you! Politics must be purified."
Confusion was complete as to exactly what next occurred. Some said there was a rattle of machine guns as Wrinkle-Face bolted, then sprawled dead. Other "eye witnesses" told of a bland and bold acquiescence in the "execution" by Wrinkle-Face, who quietly walked out into the garden and stood up to a firing squad which shot him down. In either case mortally wounded Wrinkle-Face collapsed in a great splotch of his blood upon the snow, and one of the mustards threw a piece of matting over the corpse which was soon covered by the falling flakes.
Other mustards with guns had meanwhile burst into the home of 81-year-old and proverbially lucky Finance Minister Korekiyo Takahashi. To compare him with Secretary of the U. S. Treasury Andrew William Mellon at the zenith of that statesman's fame as "The Greatest Secretary of the Treasury since Alexander Hamilton" would not be far off the mark. As Mr. Takahashi's son, who works in Manhattan, said last week, "Father was always trying to balance the Japanese budget even when we were still little children." Tall and vigorous, emphatically the Great Takahashi, this elder statesman leaped up from his wooden pillow as the mustards broke into his bedroom and shrilled bravely, "What are you trying to do?"
For answer a Japanese officer's heavy sword then & there hacked, slashed and butchered the greatest Japanese Finance Minister in all history.
Still other young mustards with machine guns had by this time burst into the bed chamber of Viscount Makoto Saito, Lord Keeper of the sacred Privy Seal of His Imperial Majesty the Son of Heaven, Emperor Hirohito. Old Saito had been a valiant admiral and from 1932 to 1934 was Premier of Japan. Two machine guns now poked their snouts in his direction and youthful mustards were at the triggers.
"Shoot me first!" screamed Viscountess Saito darting forward and clapping her hand over the muzzle of the nearest machine gun. Instantly both trigger fingers clenched and the double roar of ZUG-ZUG-ZUG began. Bloody was the brave Viscountess' hand as her lord, the Admiral and Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal crumpled and died under the murderous fusillade.