Elizabeth started haughtily, but recollected herself and repeated:
"Was this leaf printed in your country?"
"Oh, yes—yes, indeed! Down to New York. Pretty big paper, ain't it?"
"Not voluminous alone, but right puzzling to plain English minds," said the Queen, scanning the paper severely. "Instance this."
Slowly she read the opening lines of a market report:
"The bulls received a solar-plexus blow yesterday when it was reported that the C. R. and L. directors had resigned in a body owing to the extensive strikes."
"What words are these?" Elizabeth exclaimed in a despairing tone. "What is a plexus of the sun, and how doth it blow on a bull?"
Rebecca jumped up and brought her head close to the Queen's, peering over the paper which she held. She read and reread the paragraph in question and finally resumed her chair, slowly shaking her head.
"I guess that's the Wall Street talk I've heerd tell of," she said. "I don't understand that kind myself."
"Why, Sir Walter," Elizabeth exclaimed, triumphantly, "here have we two separate tribes at least, each speaking its proper dialect. Can it be that you have heard no word of these before?"