"Indeed!" said Brett, with polite interest.

"Yes; and my people are always hunting me up and making a row because I
married Mr. Jiro. Sometimes they make me that ill that I feel half
inclined to go with him to Japan. He is always worrying me to leave
London, but the more I hear about Japan the less I fancy it."

"Ah, my own little _gan_--" broke in her husband.

"There you go again," she snapped. "Calling me a _gan_--a goose, indeed!
Now, Mr. Brett, how would you like to be called a wild goose?"

"I have often deserved it," he said.

"You do not understand," chirped Jiro. "In Japan the goose is beautiful,
elegant. It flies fast like a white spilit."

His English was almost perfect, but in words containing a rolled "r" he
often substituted an "l."

"I understand enough to keep away from Japan, a place where they have an
earthquake every five minutes, and people live in paper houses. Besides,
look at the size of your women-folk. Just imagine me, Mr. Brett, walking
about among those little dolls, like a turkey among tom-tits."

"We give fat people much admilation," said Jiro.

"Nummie, I do hate that word fat. I can't help being tall and well
developed; but it is only short women who become 'fat'."