ssively reticent. When Mrs. Perkins,
kneeling before Master Harry, asked him the wholly unnecessary
question, "Why, is this Harry?" he refused wholly to reply; nor
could the diminutive Jennie be induced to say anything but "Yumps"
in response to a similar question put to her, "Yumps" being, it is
to be presumed, a juvenilism for "Yes, ma'am." Hence it was that
the object-lesson did not begin to develop until breakfast on Sunday
morning. The first step in the lesson was taken at that important
meal, when Master Harry observed, in stentorian yet sweetly soprano
tones:

"Hi wants a glarse o' milk."

To which his nurse, standing behind his chair to relieve the
Perkinses' maid of the necessity of looking after the Bradley
hopefuls, replied:

"'Ush, 'Arry, 'ush! Wite till yer arsked."

Mrs. Bradley nodded approval to Harriet, and observed quietly to
Mrs. Perkins that Harriet was such a treasure; she kept the children
so well in subjection.

The incident passed without making any impression upon the minds of
any but Thaddeus junior, who, taking his cue from Harry,
vociferously asserted that he, too, wished a glass of milk, and in
such terms as made the assertion tantamount to an ultimatum.

Then Miss Jennie seemed to think it was her turn.

"Hi doan't care fer stike. Hi wants chickin," said she. "I'n't
there goin' ter be no kikes?"

Mrs. Perkins laughed, though I strongly suspect that Thaddeus junior
would have been sent from the table had he ventured to express a
similar sentiment. Mrs. Bradley blushed; Bradley looked severe;
Perkins had that expression which all parents have when other
people's children are involved, and which implies the thought, "If
you were mine there'd be trouble; but since you are not mine, how
cunning you are!" But Harriet, the nurse, met the problem. She
said:

"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 bro