"What's unshootable?" Edmund demanded again.
"Unsuitable," Miss Esperance corrected.
"Well, 'shootable' or 'sootable,' whichever it is; what does it mean, Aunt Esperance?"
"It means not fitting."
"Like my top-coat that's got too wee?"
"No, Edmund, I did not in this case refer to bodily things."
"Like boots, then?" Edmund persisted, his head on one side like an inquisitive sparrow's.
Miss Esperance detached her mind from her darning. "What I meant was," she said seriously, "that a vulgar and ugly song is distressing enough upon anybody's lips, but above all upon the lips of a child."
"I don't sing with my lips," Edmund objected. "What's a wench, Aunt Esperance?"
"A wench is a young woman," Miss Esperance reluctantly explained.