“I must learn Japanese,” said Leslie, taking a cigarette-case from his pocket and lighting a cigarette at the tobacco-mono that stood at his elbow. “My lines are cast in Japan, that’s clear, but a man without the language is a helpless baby.”
“Ay, ay,” said M’Gourley. “You can easily get instruction in the Japanese: take a wumman to live with you.”
“I haven’t looked at a woman for ten years, and I don’t want to look at one again.” Then suddenly bursting out: “Why, you old scamp, talking like that—you told me you were a member of the Free Kirk.”
“The Wee Kirk,” corrected Mac, leisurely lighting his pipe with an ember from the hibachi.
“Well, Free Kirk or Wee Kirk, you ought to be jolly well ashamed of yourself; and were you a member of the Wee Kirk when you were constructing idols in Birmingham with old What’s-his-name?”
“Na, na; those were my godless days. I got my releegion late in life, and a vara good releegion it is; a waurkable releegion, one that does not heat in the bearings, but runs smooth.”
“And what is this wonderful religion, if I may ask?”
“It is noet so much wonderful as waurkable, and it may be compreezed in the sentence: ‘Do unto ithers as ithers would do unto you.’”
“O good Lord! and you call that a religion! Why, you precious old humbug, that means you can rob, and plunder, and murder, and cheat—that is to say, you can act like a beast towards people who would act so to you.”
“Just so.”