"Bravo, Jusy!" he exclaimed. "You have begun on pigeon English, have you, for the first of your nine languages?"
"Isn't that Chinese?" said Jusy, much crestfallen.
"Oh, no!" said Uncle George, "not by any manner of means. It is only the Chinese way of talking English. It is called pigeon English. But come in to breakfast now, and I will tell you all about my cats,—my hunting cats, I call them. They are just as good as a pack of hunting dogs; and better, for they do not need anybody to go with them."
How pleasant the breakfast-table looked!—a large square table set with gay china, pretty flowers in the middle, nice broiled chicken and fried potatoes, and baked apples and cream; and Jusy's and Rea's bright faces, one on Mr. Connor's left hand, the other on his right.
As Jim moved about the table and waited on them, he thought to himself, "Now, if this doesn't make Mr. George well, it will be because he can't be cured."
Jim had found the big house so lonely, with nobody in it except Mr. Connor and the two Chinese servants, he would have been glad to see almost anything in the shape of a human being,—man, woman, or child,—come there to live. How much more, then, these two beautiful and merry children!
Jusy and Rea thought they had never in all their lives tasted anything so good as the broiled chicken and the baked apples.
"Heapee goodee cookee, Uncle George!" said Jusy. He was so tickled with the Chinaman's way of talking, he wanted to keep doing it.