"I wish 'as 'ow I warn't married."
Mr. Punt crooned out the impious aspiration as he sorted a judicious
modicum of hemp into the canary seed. He spoke in semi-soliloquy,
yet quite loud enough to reach the vigilant ear of Mrs. Punt, who was
dusting the cages at the other end of the live-stock store. She said
nothing in reply, but her eye fixed itself upon him with a glint
eloquent of what she might say later.
"Why is that, Mr. Punt?" I asked encouragingly.
"Why, it's on'y to-day, Sir, as I met a lidy, a widder lidy, friend o'
Uncle George's down Putney way, as 'as one leg, a nice little bit o'
'ouse property and two great hauk's eggs."
It did seem a rare combination of marriageable qualities. I asked the
value of a great auk's egg, and was surprised to learn that a specimen
had recently been sold at auction for something like three hundred
pounds. I inquired whether all the great auks' eggs that came on the
market were genuine, or whether "faked" specimens were to be met with.
I had heard, I thought, of "faked" eagles' eggs.
"Different kind o' bird altogether, Sir, and different kind o' egg.
Can't very well be imitated. You didn't think as I said great 'awk,
Sir?" he asked very anxiously.
"No, no; I understand," I hastened to assure him.
"The 'awk, Sir, is a bird o' the heagle kind; the hauk's a different
kind altogether--web-footed, aquatic--was, I should rather say,
seeing as 'ow 'e's un appily extinct. Hauk and 'awk, Sir--you take the
difference?"
I said that I thought the distinction was perceptible to a fine ear
for the aspirate.
The phrase took the little man's fancy wonderfully. "That's it, Sir,"
he exclaimed, beaming up delightedly at me. "You've 'it it! Done it
in one, you 'ave. 'Fine ear for the haspirate'--that's what my darter
Maria 'ave and what I, for one, 'ave not. I'm not above confessing of
it; 'tain't given to all of us to 'ave everything, as the ant said to
the helephant when 'e was boasting about 'is trunk. Some there is as
ain't got no ear for music--same as Joe Mangles, the grocer down the
street, as 'as caught a heavy cold in 'is 'ead with taking 'is 'at off
every time as 'e 'ears 'It's a long long way to Tipperary.' Why, I've
knowed men," said Mr. Punt, in the manner of one who works himself up
to an almost incredible climax--"I've knowed men as couldn't tell the
difference between a linnet's note and a goldfinch."
"Astonishing," I said.
One of the canaries suddenly broke into a rich trill of song, as if to
add his personal expression of surprise.
"Now there!" Mr. Punt exclaimed, shaking a podgy forefinger at him.
"There's the bird as give all the trouble and cause words 'tween me
and Maria, 'e did. 'Artz Mountain roller, that bird is. Beeutiful 'is
note, ain't it, Sir?"
There really was a deep full tone, distantly suggestive of a
nightingale's, that favourably distinguished the bird's song from the
canary's usual acute treble.
"'I'm doubting, Maria,' I say to 'er," Mr. Punt resumed. "No longer
ago than this very morning I say it--'I'm doubting whether I did ought
to call that 'ere bird a 'Artz Mountain roller,' I say to 'er--me
meaning, o' course, as the 'Artz Mountains being, as some thinks, in
Germany, that pussons wouldn't so much as go to look at a canary as
called 'isself a 'Artz Mountain bird, as it might be a German bird,
for all as 'e'd never a-bin no nearer Germany than the Royal Road,
Chelsea, not never since 'e chip 'is little shell, 'e 'aven't.
"So I ask 'er the question, doubting like, and she up and say, all
saucy as a jay-bird, 'Why, certainly you didn't ought to call 'im so,'
she say.
"'Question is, Maria,' I says, 'in that case what did I ought to call
'im?'
"'And I can tell yer that too, Dad,' she say--Maria did. 'You didn't
ought to call 'im 'Artz Mountain roller, but ha-Hartz Mountain roller.
That's the way to call 'im,' she says--impident little 'ussy! But
there--what's in a name, as the white blackbird said when 'e sat on a
wooden milestone eating a red blackberry? Still, 'e weren't running
a live-stock emporium, I expect, when 'e ask such a question as that
'ere. There's a good deal in 'ow you call a bird, or a dawg or a
guinea-pig neither, if you want to pass 'im on to a customer in a
honest way o' trade."