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Among the more common we only need mention such as Bill, Ned, Jack, and Frank, to illustrate this. Nor were there wanting among the masculine nicknames those whose derivations seem very remote and far-fetched, as "El" for "Alphus;" "Hal" for "Henry;" "Jot" for "Jonathan;" "Seph" for "Josephus;" "Nol" for "Oliver;" "Dick" for "Richard," and a multitude of others equally well known.
This leaves 'Nri and 'Seph, who through physical or mental shortcomings are denied the proud privilege, and shamble about in the muck and mud of the farm, leering or grumbling, while Madame exhorts them to further activity from the kitchen door. They take their meals with the family: where they sleep no one knows. External evidence suggests the cow-house. Then, the family. First, Angèle.
Next in order come one or two farmhands usually addressed as "'Nri!" and "'Seph!" They are not as a rule either attractive in appearance or desirable in character. Every man in this country, who is a man, is away, as a matter of course, doing a man's only possible duty under the circumstances.
Hawkins must have been mad suddenly to throw up his window and bawl: "Jo seph! Jo seph!" and then he ran as hard as ever he could across the court, while an elderly man, in a green apron, carrying an immense pile of tin covers, hesitated, balanced, and then went on. But this was a diversion.
She is up by half-past four every morning; yet she never appears anxious to go to bed at night. The last sound which sleepy subalterns hear is Madame's voice, uplifted in steady discourse to the circle round the stove, sustained by an occasional guttural chord from 'Nri and 'Seph. She has been doing this, day in, day out, since the combatants settled down to trench-warfare.
Then after pausing a moment, and listening in vain for an answer, she renewed her call, "Thom as! Thom as!" Then again, after another pause, "Jo seph! Jo seph!" She listened a long time, but heard nothing except the singing of the birds, and the sighing of the wind upon the tops of the trees in the neighboring forests. She began to feel very anxious and very lonely.
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