It must not be supposed that Cyrus was a place of individual dialects. Most of us spoke ordinary English or good, strong, racy Yankee; it was only these two gentlemen who were peculiar in their speech. Mr. Jordano had formerly had an impediment; was, in fact, a confirmed stutterer, till he came to man's estate. The story went that one day, wishing to go to Tupham, he found himself wholly unable to ask for a ticket. He stood before the friendly station master, gasping, scarlet, but uttering no sound. "Come, Very!" said Mr. Tosh. "Put a name to it! Where do you want to go? Train's due!" "T-T-T-" stammered Mr. Very, "T-T-T-_Damn it! I'll walk to Tupham!_" After this experience, he set himself, carefully and methodically, to remedy the defect: labored, suffered, finally conquered. I know not what his method was: I only know that he was apt to repeat the final syllable of a word, sometimes with singular effect. When he said, "Business is looking up-pup-pup," or "I fear I must be going now-wow-wow!" strangers were surprised. To us, it was as much a part of Mr. Jordano as his foreign idioms; foreign idiocies, Mrs. Sharpe called them. These were simply an assertion of his Italian descent. Nothing vexed him so much as to be addressed as "Jordan," a thing that happened now and then. "Names ending in O," he would say, "are invariably of Latin origin, Latin origin-gin-gin!" He set great store by the letter "O," and seemed to think that it could not fail to impart a Latin tinge to whatever word it adorned. His favorite exclamation, "Nimporto!" (pronounced as spelled) was an example of his method, if it could be called a method. He knew little of French vowel sounds, nothing of accents; _i_ was English _i_ to him, long or short as might be, except when it was mysteriously _a_. _Distingué_ was "distang," and so on. It is unlikely that he was acquainted with Mrs. Plornish, as he thought Dickens unrefined, and never read him; but his epithets sometimes rivaled those of that immortal lady. Here is the train, and here is--a fine lady? a flounced and furbelowed Frenchwoman, as Mrs. Sharpe predicted? No! just Kitty! our own Kitty, rather pale, rather larger-eyed than usual (which was unreasonable!) sweet and simple in her dark gray dress. "Very distang!" murmured Mr. Jordano, making a series of little bows over his note-book. "Oh, very distang, indeed!" "Kitty! my dear child!" Miss Almeria had her in her arms, and the fair head drooped a moment on that kind black satin shoulder; but only for a moment; then Kitty was herself again. "Dear Miss Almeria! how perfectly _darling_ of you! Oh, Judge! Oh, Mr. Mallow, I _am_ so glad to see you! And oh! if it isn't Mr. Jordano! How d'ye do, Mr. Jordano? Did you come to meet me, too? I do think you are the kindest people in the world! Oh, Judge, I've come home! I've come home!" [Illustration: "Oh, Judge, I've come home! I've come home!"]