This was the Tea House of the Tortoise, a place well known to M’Gourley, as (to use his own abominable expression) being “cheap and clean.”
A panel of the front was drawn back, revealing cream-white matting and lamp light.
M’Gourley sat down with a sigh on the side of the veranda, and began to pull off his elastic side boots. Leslie sat down also, with Campanula in his lap; he could not put her down for she had literally tumbled into sleep.
“Pull off my boots, Mac,” said he. “I can’t let go of this blessed child.”
“Na!” said Mac mysteriously, and somewhat viciously, as he knelt down and unlaced his partner’s boots, “ye cannot let her go, ye cannot let her go; forby, she wullna let you go.”
“You think she’s going to stick to me?”
“Imphim,” replied Mac.
Imphim is not Japanese, it is the double Scotch grunt, which has twenty-two separate meanings, mostly unpleasant. Shut your mouth tight and try to say “Hum, hum,” and you will achieve “Imphim,” but never do it again, please.
Leslie was about to answer, when a sound behind made him turn, and there, like a pinned-down butterfly, was a Mousmé on the mat, crying, “Irashi, condescend to enter.”
M’Gourley—a most unengaging figure in his stocking feet—rose and addressed the Mousmé.