“That I shan’t now. I might have done if you hadn’t worried me so. But I’ll tell you what he didn’t do: he didn’t ask questions all day long. No great man ever did.”
That evening, perhaps, just before bedtime, the same question will be repeated at home.
“Father, who is Speke?”
“Speke?”
“Yes, there’s a monument in the Gardens in memory of Speke.”
“YES, NURSE, BUT DO TELL ME WHAT SPEKE DID?”
“A very unsuitable inscription, I think. Bad advice. Little boys—yes, and little girls too—should be seen and not heard. I would rather it said ‘In honour of not speaking.’” (This father, you see, was one of the funny fathers who think that children want only to laugh.)
“No, father, not S-p-e-a-k; S-p-e-k-e.”
“Oh, Speke!—yes, of course, well, Speke—Speke was a great man.”