“Well, we might as well all die together.”
To which Mr. Story at once replied, “Yes, and all dye the same color.”
Puns were not then frowned upon so severely as they are now. Thackeray was in Boston during this period and the Storys invited us to a children’s party at which the great man was present. I remember him only as a large person in black, with thick gray hair, who did his best, I do not doubt, to amuse the children.
Mr. William Story gave us an impersonation of a dwarf which was truly delightful. To our immeasurable surprise, we saw this gentleman, suddenly shrunk to less than half his natural height. Arrayed in a Turkish fez and white garments, with slippers and stockings to match, he danced very high, if not disposedly, on a table, with many rollings of the eyes and gestures of the arms. The explanation of the trick was that his hands formed the feet of the dwarf, while the arms and hands were furnished by another person kneeling behind him.
To invent a language is a common device of children, who usually content themselves with simply adding a termination or a prefix to each word. Our attempt was more ambitious as we boldly undertook to construct an entire language. It is needless to say that we did not get very far with our venture. I fancy that we chose Patagonian because the account in our geography of the inhabitants of that country—large men, imperfectly clothed and very slightly civilized—appealed to our infant imaginations. Also, the land being so remote, it was very unlikely that any returned travelers would suddenly speak to us in true Patagonian accents and so put us to the blush.
There were to be many irregular verbs, the wise Julia counseled, since that would render our task easier! Of the surviving fragments of our language, it suffices to give two.
“Bis von snout?” (“Are you well?”)
“Brunk tu touchy snout.” (“I am very well.”)
It will be observed that these are reminiscent of more than one modern tongue.
The scope of our language was hardly great enough to account for its fame (it has been duly chronicled in at least one published volume). Doubtless it was the boldness of the venture and the happy choice of a name which immortalized the Howe Patagonian tongue.