he possessed insight unknown to others. At the end of the day Homma took a pot of Gyokuro "the dew of jewels" and most precious of Japanese teas to celebrate today's events. Homma was about to take the greatest gamble of his life. It would not be a gamble based on certainties but a gamble based on probabilities. From his endless research Homma could calculate the probabilities better than any man alive.

Homma felt blessed to live in Osaka and doubly blessed to know about rice. Homma knew a great deal about rice. This was the first day.

On Tuesday, Homma arrived at the rice market, just as a group of growers trundled their carts laden with the new season rice bails into the town square. Here, merchants would inspectand haggle with the growers and their representatives to set today's prices on the bales arriving from local growers and from inland. The growers and their agents were in a gregarious mood. The early harvest was good and the new rice bright and shiny. But business was lethargic. Tea was drunk and pleasantries exchanged. There was no urgency for the merchants to buy.

The big rice merchants of Osaka adopted their usual pose of indifference. Just sit quietly and show no interest. This tactic always wore down the growers. The biggest rice buyers operated an informal cartel which controlled local prices. They could afford to wait. Growers had more rice on their farms and the main harvest was still to come from the large rice growing regions to the