Part 25 (2/2)

”'Vex not thou the schoolboy's soul With thy shabby _tip_.'”

”Now, Cray,” said Brandon, ”don't you emulate Valentine's abominable trick of quoting.”

”And I have often begged you two not to parody the Immortals,” said John. ”The small fry you may make fun of, if you please, but let the great alone.”

”But he ithn't dead,” reasoned Master Augustus John; ”I don't call any of thoth fellowth immortal till they're dead.”

”It's a very bad habit,” continued his father.

”And he's made me almost as bad as himself,” observed Crayshaw in the softest and mildest of tones. ”Miss Christie said this very morning that there was no bearing me, and I never did it till I knew him. I used to be so good, everybody loved me.”

John laughed, but was determined to say his say.

”You never can take real pleasure again in any poetry that you have mauled in that manner. Miss Crampton was seriously annoyed when she found that you had altered the girl's songs, and made them ridiculous.”

The last time, in fact, that Johnnie and Crayshaw had been together, they had deprived themselves of their natural rest in order to carry out these changes; and the first time Miss Crampton gave a music lesson after their departure, she opened the book at one of their improved versions, which ran as follows:--

”Wink to me only with thy nose, And I will sing through mine.”

Miss Crampton hated boyish vulgarity; she turned the page, but matters were no better. The two youths had next been at work on a song in which a m.u.f.f of a man, who offers nothing particular in return, requests 'Nancy' to gang wi' him, leaving her home, her dinner, her brooches, her best gowns, &c., behind, to walk through snow-drifts, blasts, and other perils by his side, and afterwards strew flowers on his clay. Desirous as it seemed to show that the young person was not so misguided as her silence has. .h.i.therto left the world to think, they had added a verse, which ran as follows:--

”'Ah, wilt thou thus, for his loved sake, All manner of hards.h.i.+ps dare to know?'

The fair one smiled whenas he spake, And promptly answered, 'No, sir; no,'”

”Cray,” said John Mortimer, observing the boy's wan appearance, ”how could you think of sitting up so late?”

”Why, the thupper wath on purpoth for him,” exclaimed Johnnie. ”We gave it in hith honour, ath a mark of thympathy.”

”Because he was burnt out,” said Gladys. ”Papa, did you know? his tutor's house was burnt down, and the boys had to escape in the night.”

”But it wath a great lark,” observed Johnnie, ”and he knowth he thought tho.”

”Yes,” said Crayshaw, folding his hands with farcical mock meekness, ”but I saved hardly anything--nothing whatever, in fact, but my Yankee accent, and that only by taking it between my teeth.”

”There was not enough of it to be worth saving, my dear boy,” said Brandon.

Crayshaw's face for once a.s.sumed a genuine expression, one of alarm. He was distinguished at school for the splendid Yankee dialect he could put on, as Johnnie was for his mastery of a powerful Devons.h.i.+re lingo; but if scarcely a hint of his birthplace remained in his daily speech, and he had not noticed any change, there was surely danger lest this interesting accomplishment should be declining also.

”I am always imitating the talk I hear in the cottages,” he remarked; ”I may have lost it so.”

”Perhaps, as Cray goes to so many places, it may get scattered about,”

said little Bertram; but he was speedily checked by Johnnie, who observed with severity that they didn't want any ”thrimp thauth.”

”He mutht thimmer,” said Johnnie, ”thath what he mutht do. He mutht be thrown into an iron pot, with a gallon of therry cobbler, and a pumpkin pie, and thome baked beanth, and a copy of the Biglow Paperth, and a handful of thalt, and they mutht all thimmer together till he geth properly flavoured again.”

”Wouldn't it be safer if he was only dipped in?” asked the same ”shrimp”

who had spoken before.

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