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Octogenarians mumbled it. Infants lisped it. Tired City men, trampled under foot in the rush for their tram, asked it of the ambulance attendants who carried them to the hospital. And then, one bright, clear morning, when the birds sang and all Nature seemed fair and gay, Clarence Tresillian developed mumps. London was in a ferment.
But though some of the company obeyed her, a curious circle still surrounded us. "Dame! if you must be banished to the stables, we all will go, mademoiselle," declared the pink gallant. "We all want news of the vanished Mar." "Indeed we do. We have missed him sorely. And I dare swear this messenger's account will prove diverting," lisped the sky-coloured demoiselle. I was not enjoying myself.
He owns that often of late years her image, and that of his sister Mary, have risen so mildly, so impressively before him, that he has flown almost like a maniac from the gay and heartless throngs, to solitude and silence, and as the thoughts of home and his infancy, when he first lisped out his boyish prayer by the side of his sister at his mother's knee, came thronging over him, he has sobbed and wept like a child.
"Yes," remarked Helen, "you and Frank will put down the rebellion, I've not the least doubt." This was meant for a sly hit at Frank's youthful patriotism; but Willie took it quite seriously. "Yes," he lisped; "me and Fwank we put down the webellion. Take aim!" pointing his toy at his father's nose. "Fire! bang! See, me kill a webel."
"Nimble-toes promised to take me for a sail some day," said Limpy-toes. "Oh, let's go again, Mammy," lisped Tiny. "Let's go," echoed Teenty. Baby Squealer was sound asleep in the candy bag which hung over Mother Graymouse's shoulder, so he did not even say "Boo-hoo!" "Well, well, dearies, we did have a delightful visit," replied Mother Graymouse. "Perhaps some day we will go again."
"Not lie here?" cried this child of the puszta. "Why, pray?" "Oh! I'll find some place or other in the tap-room outside." "It's a way great folks have, I suppose," murmured Dame Kardos, shrugging her shoulders, "but I never saw or heard the likes of it before." "But, my lord," lisped Clementina, greatly agitated, "won't those wild vagabonds outside disturb you?"
Omai lisped broken English, and made all the assembled musicians hold their ears by howling Otaheitean love songs, such as those with which Oberea charmed her Opano. With the literary and fashionable society, which occasionally met under Dr. Burney's roof, Frances can scarcely be said to have mingled. She was not a musician, and could therefore bear no part in the concerts.
The class, ranging in years from those who lisped in youth to those who lisped in age, stood in line against the wall, and Wetmore, spelling-book in hand, stood in front of them to "give out" the words. It was not considered fair to give out a word not in the spelling-book until the spelling and "syllabling" of sentences was commenced.
One of these was a plump young man who wore a coloured scarf round his waist and babbled of golf handicaps ... I saw him again in the villa dining-room, wearing a dinner-jacket, and lisping a little.... I sat opposite him at bridge, I beheld him collared by two of Macgillivray's men, when his comrade had rushed for the thirty-nine steps that led to the sea ... I saw, too, the sitting-room of my old flat in Portland Place and heard little Scudder's quick, anxious voice talking about the three men he feared most on earth, one of whom lisped in his speech.
She came into the nursery one evening just after I had listened to Georgette's lisped and broken prayer, and had put her to bed. Taking the little one's hand, she said, "Cette enfant a toujours un peu de fievre." And presently afterwards, looking at me with a quicker glance than was habitual to her quiet eye, "Le Docteur John l'a-t-il vue dernierement? Non, n'est-ce pas?"
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