Lord Day and Lady Night

01. Wham, Bam, No Thank You Ma'am

The knock at the door echoed through the empty street. Moments later, a small flap in the door opened, revealing a small part of bristly beard, soon replaced by a suspicious eye.

"Yes, who is the—You! It's you again!"

Amy grinned up at the charming man behind the door. "Pleased ta see me, are ye? Dat warms my little heart."

"Avaunt, impure female!"

"A very nice evenin' to ye, too, Karim."

The flap moved to slam shut. However, this was not Amy's first encounter with the charming, bulky bodyguard behind the door. Quickly reaching up, she stuck her parasol through the opening.

"Take that out at once!"

"Funny." Amy grinned. "Normally, I'm da one to say that to men, not da other way around."

Sputtering came from beyond the door. Amy enjoyed listening to it for a bit, then decided it was time to get to the reason she had come.

"So," she asked, interrupting the outraged grumbling from beyond the door, "is Lilly at home?"

"The Sahiba should not associate with a lowly creature such as yourself."

"Which makes it really funny dat dis lowly creature regularly comes for afternoon tea, doesn't it? Now, just tell me already. Is she at home?"

A low curse in some foreign language issued from behind the door.

"I already told you yesterday. Both she and Ambrose Sahib are still on their second honeymoon in the United States."

"Second honeymoon my sweetly smelling arse! That's just an excuse for draggin' her along on another business trip, like da first one. Where did dat cheap son of a bachelor haul her dis time? A sheep farm? A copper mine?"

"Most certainly not!"

"Well? Where den?"

"Ehem. Well...a coal mine, actually."

"How incredibly romantic. I can already see it...a romantic walk through corridors filled with coal dust, pools of muddy water glitterin' in da torchlight..."

"Do you have anything worthy to listen to? If not, remove that thing stuck in the flap and depart from this place!"

"Of course I do! I want to know when she will be coming back."

"Hm." The eye beyond the door gave Amy an appraising look, probably calculating the chances of shoving the parasol out and slamming the flap shut.

"Don't even think about it," Amy advised. "How long?"

"Hm. Hm. Four months."

"Four months?"

"Maybe five."

"Five? Ye can't be serious!"

"I am always serious. Now depart, or I shall have you forcibly removed."

"Oh..." Amy wiggled her eyebrows. "That sounds fun. Will ye take care of it personally?"

Once again, the sound of sputtering came from behind the door. Before the poor man choked, Amy waved goodbye, removed the parasol from the door and gave Karim a wink. "Call me any time ye wanna 'ave a bit of fun, big boy."

"Naraka dē duśaṭa dūta dī bēṭī!"

"Bless ye. Well...till next time. I'll drop by again the day after tomorrow, shall I?"

"Tuhāḍē pairāṁ nū magaramachāṁ du'ārā khādhā jā sakadā hai!"

"All right, since ye can't wait to see me again, let's make it tomorrow."