Page:My Japanese Wife.djvu/86

72 She is pleased with herself, with me, with her new home, with everything. And after our dinner, dining which she has chattered in most diverting English, learned at school from an “English teacher,” anxious to please me, whom she still, I fear, looks upon as her owner, she proposes to sing.

What queer English it was!—often almost unrecognizable from mispronunciation. She still calls me “Mister,” and almost makes me choke with smothered laughter each time.

Fully twenty minutes are occupied in attempsattempts [sic] to master the appalling intricacies of “Cyril”—my name. The nearest approach as yet is “Cy-reel,” which must do for the present, with lapses into “Mister” when she forgets.

Whilst I smoke, Mousmé sings songs in a soft little tone, to the accompaniment of her long-necked samisen.