in a noted crime, and I have ventured to come here to ask you for
additional details."

Mrs. Jiro heaved a great sigh of relief.

"My gracious!" she cried, "you did startle me. I can't bear to hear the
name of Ipswich nowadays. I was married from there."

"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'."

She hissed the word venomously, as if she possessed the scorpion's fabled
power to sting herself. Evidently Mrs. Jiro dreaded corpulence more than
earthquakes.

Brett had never previously met such a strangely assorted couple. He would
willingly have prolonged his visit for mere amusement, but he was
compelled to return to the cause of his presence. Unless he asked direct
questions he would make no progress. He took from his pocket-book the
drawing made in the Black Museum, and handed it to the Japanese, saying:

"Would you mind telling me the meaning of that?"

Jiro screwed his queer little eyes upon the scrawling characters. The
methods of writing in the Far East, being pictorial and inexact, require
scrutiny of the context before a given sentence can be correctly
interpreted.

The little man made no trouble about it, however.

"They are old chalacters," he said. "In Japan we joke a lot. Evely sign
has sevelal meanings. This can be lead two ways. It is