At breakfast this morning I said to Mr. Bang, “You had quite a long
conversation with Lady Muriel Saffron last evening.”
“Did I? I was not aware of the fact,” he responded coldly.
“Why, you were standing talking to her for five or ten minutes: I heard
one lady ask another who you were.”
“Not really?” In saying this Mr. Bang’s voice seemed more affected than
natural. Possibly it was an expression of sarcasm.
“Indeed you did,” I affirmed.
“I did not know it was Lady Muriel I was talking to, but I am not
surprised, as her manners were very good, and her sentiments worthy and
gracious.”
Never have I known Mr. Bang to talk with greater assurance. I felt
snubbed.
“Do you mean to say Lady Muriel talked with you all that time, without
knowing who you were, or anything about you, and without a formal
introduction?”
“Certainly, why not?”
I looked from Mumsie to Uncle, but the former was abstracted, and the
latter deep in the columns of the _Citizen_.
“Auntie, who were the females my Little Partner heard talking about me
last evening?”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” replied Mumsie.
Mr. Bang’s voice was such that it seemed as if he were imitating the
ladies who had complained. I smiled expectantly.
“Did they use the English accent?” asked he.
“I believe they did,” I replied.
“They were probably members of the Government House set—”
“I thought them English,” I ventured.
“Which shows only that you lack experience.” That was rather blunt.
A moment’s pause and then Mr. Bang continued, “You know there are lots
of old maids in Ottawa.”
“Now, Jack, leave the ladies alone,” protested Mumsie. But unfortunately
my curiosity got the better of my dignity and my loyalty to my sex.
“Ottawa young ladies won’t look at men of their own class, the sons of
civil servants, but set their caps towards Government House.”
“Yes,” I said weariedly.
“To them the aides are the only fish in the matrimonial sea.”
“Have they caught many?”
“In this particular they remind me of the Irishman at sea, who fell
asleep on the look-out. ‘Ahoy’ called the mate. No answer. ‘Ahoy’ again
called the mate, and this time the awakened salt replied:—‘Shoo! Shoo!
Sir, whist! I’m ketchin’ rats.’ ‘How many have you caught?’ asked the
mate. ‘When I ketch this one and two more I’ll have three.’ Now when
Ottawa society ketches one aide and then—”
“Hush Jack, somebody may hear you,” pleaded Mumsie, and our breakfast
ended in silence. I wonder if Mr. Bang has proposed to some Ottawa girl
and been refused!
After breakfast we wandered into the lounge, where we found Mr. Fraser.
Mr. Bang led us to him saying,
“You have been in Ottawa off and on, over many years, what is the origin
of the English accent here?”
Mr. Fraser looked up from his paper, rose to his feet, and after we were
seated answered, “It’s barrack-room English, that’s what it is.”
“Barrack-room English!—surely not?”
“Yes it is: I lived in Halifax for thirty years and I know.”
“But it’s not the voice of Tommy Atkins—”
“No, it is the voice in which the senior Major’s wife calls over the
back fence to the neighbouring officer’s lady to know if she can have
the loan of some hair-pins. Lord! how I hate it!”
“The English accent as an affectation,” interposed Uncle, “has been
handed down for generations.”
“If it is of ancient lineage here, it has died out in England,” said Mr.
Bang with his usual assurance. “One does not hear it in Piccadilly or on
the promenade at Eastbourne.”
“They take it as the correct thing, here in Ottawa.”
Mr. Fraser was interrupted by Mr. Bang, who said: “I often thought—when
in England I noticed its absence—that it would be a good thing if
Ottawa were to send a delegation to London to furnish instruction in the
English accent. Now here’s an idea for you: introduce a Bill in
Parliament bearing out this suggestion. You’d make a name for yourself.”
“I’d make an ass of myself. Leave the society people alone, if it amuses
them it cannot do us much harm—”
“They should be sat upon,” said Mr. Bang. “What are English people to
think of us when they hear such whinings uttered in all earnestness—”
“A visitor who would draw his estimate of a people after merely a survey
of the court circle, would show such disregard for history and such
general shallowness, that it would not matter what he thought.”