Fathers and daughters -- Fiction; Social classes -- England -- Fiction
"Clapham Church Parsing--same as see your uncle Mr. Steptoe
drownded--and rilewye-stytion cabman with rilings for trunks atop.
Three thousand six hundred and thirty-two. Got him indoors they did."
Lizarann felt inclined to cry; this was a throw-back! But she wasn't
one to give in easily. "My Daddy says he could swarm up the rigging as
soon as not," said she. "Only the doctor he says for to keep quiet a
bit, owing to prudence." When Lizarann repeated phrases lately heard,
you would have thought, to listen to her, she was quite a big girl.
Now, it must not be supposed that Lizarann and Bridgetticks had not met
during the past eight weeks. On the contrary, visits had been arranged,
by request, even before Lizarann had been thought plenty well enough
for school, only not to fret herself. These were the terms in which
Miss Fossett's Anne confirmed that lady's opinion, and sanctioned a
continued study of arithmetic and calligraphy. But intercourse during
school-hours is fettered by formula; and when there's carpets and the
bed made and all, you have to set quiet, and it's not the same thing.
So when these two found themselves once more in their old haunt, it was
as though a ceremonial padlock had been removed from their tongues.
Lizarann's improved exterior--for Teacher and Anne had reconstructed
it--clashed a little with Bridgetticks; but the principle held good.
Here, on Mr. 'Icks's doorstep, when an imputation of falsehood as
an exordium to any reply seemed natural and genial, neither speaker
felt bound to check her inspirations. Lizarann and Bridgetticks were
themselves again.
They sat on the doorstep, cloze or no!--this referred to Lizarann's
frock--and Bridget retained her younger brother, perhaps for slight
rehearsals of the vengeance she had in store for him; he was that
troublesome! Bridget smelt of soap and warm steam.
"_You_ wented on stelts, and wooden legs is better than stelts!"
Lizarann's uneasiness rankles, and she longs for public acknowledgment
of her Daddy's prospects of rehabilitation.
"I shouldn't 'a said so," Bridget answered. "Stelts you catches hold
atop. Wooden legs is balancin'. Stelts is your hands as well as your
legs. Wooden legs you're stood-on-end and pitches yourself over,
just as like as not. Not onlest you have crutches. Your Daddy he 's
crutches, he has. I see 'em myself!" Lizarann could say nothing about
Job's comforters, if only because, on the one occasion when she had
heard them mentioned--by Mr. Winkleson--she had supposed them to be
woollen ones. Besides, she was interested on another point.
"My Daddy hasn't no scrutches," said she. She had caught their name,
without understanding it, when her father used it; and now decided on
denying them provisionally, pending inquiry into their nature. "What's
a scrutch?"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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