PAGE 5
An Object-Lesson
by
In short, as far as their speech was concerned, thanks to association with Harriet, Jennie and Harry were as perfect little cockneys as ever ignored an aspirate.
The visit of the Bradleys, like all other things, came to an end, and Bessie, Thaddeus, and the children were once more left to themselves. Teddy junior, it was observed, after his day with Harry, developed a slight tendency to misplace the letter “h” in his conversation, but it was soon corrected, and things ran smoothly as of yore. Only–the Only being the natural sequence of the But referred to some time since–Mr. and Mrs. Perkins changed their minds about the French nurse, and it came about in this way:
“Thaddeus,” said Bessie, after the Bradleys had departed, “what is the tile of a rockin’-‘orse?”
“I don’t know. Why?” asked Thaddeus.
“Why, don’t you remember,” she said, “young Harry Bradley accused Jennie of pulling out the tile of his rockin’-‘orse?”
“Oh yes! Ha, ha!” laughed Thaddeus. “So she did. I know now. Tile is cockney for tail.”
“Did you notice the accent those children had?”
“Yes.”
“All got from the nurse, too?”
“True.”
“Ah, Teddy, what do you think of our getting a French maid, after all? Don’t you think that we’d run a great risk?”
“Of what?”
“Of having Ted speak–er–cockney French.”
“H’m–yes. Very likely,” said Thaddeus. “I’d thought of that myself, and, I guess, perhaps we’d better stick to Irish.”
“So do I. We can correct any tendency to a brogue, don’t you think?”
“Certainly,” said Thaddeus. “Or, if we couldn’t, it wouldn’t be fatal to the boy’s prospects. It might even help him if he–“
“Help him? If what?”
“If he ever went into polities,” said Perkins.
And that was the object-lesson which a kindly fate gave to the Perkinses in time to prevent their engaging a French maid for the children.
As to its value as a lesson, as to the value of its results, those who are familiar with French as spoken by nurse-instructed youths can best judge.
I am not unduly familiar with that or any other kind of French, but I have ideas in the matter.