Kevin Gowen wrote:

>Sometimes I am a scalawag, even.

In my quaint variety of the lingo it's "scallywag", but we only use it of
kids under the age of about twelve. After that it's just plain "delinquent".

> Oh, I wasn't referring to the bit about washing off. It was the
> statement, "not that many people use the public baths any more" that
> caught my eye.

Well, in my circles people frequently say, "Let's go to the hot spring," and
I've been dozens of times, but no one's ever said, "Let's go to the public
baths". I did read somewhere that there's something like one public bath now
for every fifty in the immediate post-war period, but once again we need
Eric to come along with some statistics to settle this.

Still, never mind all that, what matters is that you're still out there at
the age of - what, thirty or so? - being a "scalawag".

There's a good old boy!

--
John
http://rarebooksinjapan.com