In time we made a kind of ingenious compromise; for Mimsey, who was
full of resource, invented a new language, or rather two, which we
called Frankingle and Inglefrank, respectively. They consisted in
anglicizing French nouns and verbs and then conjugating and pronouncing
them Englishly, or _vice versa_.
For instance, it was very cold, and the school-room window was open, so
she would say in Frankingle--
"Dispeach yourself to ferm the feneeter, Gogo. It geals to pier-fend! we
shall be inrhumed!" or else, if I failed to immediately
understand--"Gogo, il frise a splitter les stonnes--maque aste et chute
le vindeau; mais chute--le donc vite! Je snize deja!" which was
Inglefrank.
With this contrivance we managed to puzzle and mystify the uninitiated,
English and French alike. The intelligent reader, who sees it all in
print, will not be so easily taken in.
When Mimsey was well enough, she would come with my cousins and me into
the park, where we always had a good time--lying in ambush for red
Indians, rescuing Madge Plunket from a caitiff knight, or else hunting
snakes and field-mice and lizards, and digging for lizard's eggs, which
we would hatch at home--that happy refuge for all manner of beasts, as
well as little boys and girls.
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