The Attache | Page 7

These sections differ also in dialect and in humour, as much as in other things, and to as great, if not a greater extent, than the natives of different parts of Great Britain vary from each other. It is customary in Europe to call all Americans, Yankees; but it is as much a misnomer as it would be to call all Europeans Frenchmen. Throughout these works it will be observed, that Mr. Slick's pronunciation is that of the Yankee, or an inhabitant of the rural districts of New England. His conversation is generally purely so; but in some instances he uses, as his countrymen frequently do from choice, phrases which, though Americanisms, are not of Eastern origin. Wholly to exclude these would be to violate the usages of American life; to introduce them oftener would be to confound two dissimilar dialects, and to make an equal departure from the truth. Every section has its own characteristic dialect, a very small portion of which it has imparted to its neighbours. The dry, quaint humour of New England is occasionally found in the west, and the rich gasconade and exaggerative language of the west migrates not unfrequently to the east. This idiomatic exchange is perceptibly on the increase. It arises from the travelling propensities of the Americans, and the constant intercourse mutually maintained by the inhabitants of the different States. A droll or an original expression is thus imported and adopted, and, though not indigenous, soon becomes engrafted on the general stock of the language of the country."--3rd Series, p. 142.]
"I was ready to bile right over, when as luck would have it, the rain stopt all of a sudden, the sun broke out o' prison, and I thought I never seed any thing look so green and so beautiful as the country did. 'Come,' sais I, 'now for a walk down the avenue, and a comfortable smoke, and if the man at the gate is up and stirrin', I will just pop in and breakfast with him and his wife. There is some natur there, but here it's all cussed rooks and chimbly swallers, and heavy men and fat women, and lazy helps, and Sunday every day in the week.' So I fills my cigar-case and outs into the passage.
"But here was a fix! One of the doors opened into the great staircase, and which was it? 'Ay,' sais I, 'which is it, do you know?' 'Upon my soul, I don't know,' sais I; 'but try, it's no use to be caged up here like a painter, and out I will, that's a fact.'
"So I stops and studies, 'that's it,' sais I, and I opens a door: it was a bedroom--it was the likely chambermaid's.
"'Softly, Sir,' sais she, a puttin' of her finger on her lip, 'don't make no noise; Missus will hear you.'
"'Yes,' sais I, 'I won't make no noise;' and I outs and shuts the door too arter me gently.
"'What next?' sais I; 'why you fool, you,' sais I, 'why didn't you ax the sarvant maid, which door it was?' 'Why I was so conflastrigated,' sais I, 'I didn't think of it. Try that door,' well I opened another, it belonged to one o' the horrid hansum stranger galls that dined at table yesterday. When she seed me, she gave a scream, popt her head onder the clothes, like a terrapin, and vanished--well I vanished too.
"'Ain't this too bad?' sais I; 'I wish I could open a man's door, I'd lick him out of spite; I hope I may be shot if I don't, and I doubled up my fist, for I didn't like it a spec, and opened another door--it was the housekeeper's. 'Come,' sais I, 'I won't be balked no more.' She sot up and fixed her cap. A woman never forgets the becomins.
'"Anything I can do for you, Sir?' sais she, and she raelly did look pretty; all good natur'd people, it appears to me, do look so.
"'Will you be so good as to tell me, which door leads to the staircase, Marm?' sais I.
"'Oh, is that all?' sais she, (I suppose, she thort I wanted her to get up and get breakfast for me,) 'it's the first on the right, and she fixed her cap agin' and laid down, and I took the first on the right and off like a blowed out candle. There was the staircase. I walked down, took my hat, onbolted the outer door, and what a beautiful day was there. I lit my cigar, I breathed freely, and I strolled down the avenue.
"The bushes glistened, and the grass glistened, and the air was sweet, and the birds sung, and there was natur' once more. I walked to the lodge; they had breakfasted had the old folks, so I chatted away