FullReads

“Popper’s goin’ ter have stike, Jinnie; m’yby Mr. Perkins’ll give yer lots o’ gryvy. Hit i’n’t time fer the kikes.”

Perhaps I ought to say to those who have not studied dialect as “she is spoke” that the word m’yby is the Seven Dials idiom for maybe, itself more or less an Americanism, signifying “perhaps,” while “kikes” is a controvertible term for cakes.

After breakfast, as a matter of course, the senior members of both families attended divine service, then came dinner, and after dinner the usual matching of the children began. The hopefuls of Perkins were matched against the scions of Bradley. All four were brought downstairs and into the parental presence in the library.

“Your Harry is a fine fellow, Mrs. Bradley,” said Thaddeus.

“Yes, we think Harry is a very nice boy,” returned Mrs. Bradley, with a fond glance at the youth.

“Wot djer si about me, mar?” asked Harry.

“Nothing, dear,” replied Mrs. Bradley, raising her eyebrows reprovingly.

“Yes, yer did, too,” retorted Harry. “Yer said as ‘ow hi were a good boy.”

“Well, ‘e i’n’t, then,” interjected Jennie. “‘E’s a bloomin’ mean un. ‘E took a knoife an’ cut open me doll.”

“‘Ush, Jinnie, ‘ush!” put in the nurse. “Don’t yer tell tiles on ‘Arry. ‘E didn’t mean ter ‘urt yer doll. ‘Twas a haxident.”

“No, ’twasn’t a haxident,” said Jennie. “‘E done it a-purpice.”

“Well, wot if hi did?” retorted Harry. “Didn’t yer pull the tile off me rockin’-‘orse?”

“Well, never mind,” said Bradley, seeing how strained things were getting. “Don’t quarrel about it now. It’s all done and gone, and I dare say you were both a little to blame.”

“‘Hi war’n’t!” said Harry, and then the subject was dropped. The children romped in and out through the library and halls for some time, and the Bradleys and Perkinses compared notes on various points of interest to both. After a while they again reverted to the subject of their children.

“Does Harry go to school?” asked Bessie.

“No, we think he’s too young yet,” returned Mrs. Bradley. “He learns a little of something every day from Harriet, who is really a very superior girl. She is a good servant. She hasn’t been in this country very long, and is English to the core, as you’ve probably noticed, not only in her way of comporting herself, but in her accent.”

“Yes, I’ve observed it,” said Bessie. “What does she teach him?”

“Oh, she tells him stories that are more or less instructive, and she reads to him. She’s taught him one or two pretty little songs– ballads, you know–too. Harry has a sweet little voice. Harry, dear, won’t you sing that song about Mrs. Henry Hawkins for mamma?”

“Don’t warn’ter,” said Harry. “Hi’m sick o’ that bloomin’ old song.”

“Seems to me I’ve heard it,” said Thaddeus. “As I remember it, Harry, it was very pretty.”

“It is,” said Bradley. “It’s the one you mean–‘Oh, ‘Lizer! dear ‘Lizer! Mrs. ‘Ennery ‘Awkins.’ Harry sings it well, too; but I say, Thad, you ought to hear the nurse sing it. It’s great.”

“I should think it might be.”

“She has the accent down fine, you know.”

“Sort of born to it, eh?”

“Yes; you can’t cultivate that accent and get it just right.”

“I’ll do ‘Dear Old Dutch’ for yer,” suggested Harry. “Hi likes thet better ‘n ‘Mrs. ‘Awkins.'”

So Harry deserted “Mrs. ‘Awkins” and sang that other pathetic coster-ballad, “Dear Old Dutch,” and, to the credit of Harriet, the nurse, it must be said that he was marvellously well instructed. It could not have been done better had the small vocalist been the own son of a London coster-monger instead of the scion of an American family of refinement.

Thus the day passed. Jennie proved herself quite as proficient in the dialect of Seven Dials as was Harry, or even Harriet, and when she consented to stand on a chair and recite a few nursery rhymes, there was not an unnoticed “h” that she did not, sooner or later, pick up and attach to some other word to which it was not related, as she went along.