"I knaw he 'ave a chate somebody, he's so quiet," one man will say of another on a market day.
[Chapter XV]
Tickle a Cornishman, and he'll smile. He likes it; and when you have rested, begin again, and he'll still smile. Some people want different handling, like Kaffirs in mines, who only smile nicely after being knocked down with a crowbar. "Going! And I'm just beginning to like 'ee," is a common form of regret towards a civil-tongued stranger who has found out the way to tickle. Cornishmen abroad tickle one another at their annual dinners, when all that's fair and lovely to the sight "belongs" to the land of pasties and cream.
There are some dialects which make people restless, and some which make people tearful, and some to want to go to theatres and operas, and some to churches, and some—well, elsewhere. An Irish M.P., on the wrongs of Ireland, is sure to make you tearful; and a Scotchman, mellow, is certain to cry himself when eloquent on Bobby Burns; but the ordinary Englishman is not moved to tears by ordinary English. His language is very good for getting about with in trains and tramcars, and finding out the prices of things, and making profits from the Equator to the Pole. A hard-hearted sort of a language, that wants filing and sand-papering a bit to reach the heart—like French, just by way of making a comparison, which will not be odious now the bien entente is on the carpet.