"You'll have to send that loafer away, right now, ayes I guess you will."
"Why?"
"Because this boy has learnt to swear like a pirate—ayes—he has!"
Uncle Peabody didn't know it but I myself had begun to suspect it, and that hour the man was sent away, and I remember that he left in anger with a number of those new words flying from his lips. A forced march to the upper room followed that event. Uncle Peabody explained that it was wicked to swear—that boys who did it had very bad luck, and mine came in a moment. I never had more of it come along in the same length of time.
One day in the spring when the frogs were chanting in the swamp land, they seemed to be saying, "Dunkelberg, Dunkelberg, Dunkelberg, Dunkelberg," from morning to bedtime. I was helping Uncle Peabody to fix the fence when he said:
"Hand me that stake, Bub. Don't be so much of a gentleman."
I handed the stake to him and then I said:
"Uncle Peabody, I want to be a gentleman."
"A gentleman!" he exclaimed as he looked down at me thoughtfully.
"A grand, noble gentleman with a sword and a gold watch and chain and diamonds on," I exclaimed.