."

"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.

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, i