“Well, what does Mongshure Godang do?” he asked, trying to imitate her French pronunciation.
“Why, don’t you know? He does everything. He is the chief.”
“Oh, yes, I know. But that is a pretty difficult part for me.”
“Oh, no; you just sit there on the steps, and whenever you see a chicken come in under the gate, you go and drive him out. The chickens, you know, are the bad people who want to ruin the Social Palace.”
Dan promised, immensely attracted to the child and all her ways, and thinking how he was wronged, because she was not taught to call him father, or to know that he was so. Min then went on with what she called “ognizing.” The little dolls formed the nursery, the big ones the pouponnat. This girl must be head-nurse, this first-assistant-nurse, a larger girl leader of the exercises in the pouponnat, and so on. She made them all call her, as she had been called abroad, Mademoiselle von Frauenstein. There were three little boys present, and one of these she made head-gardener, and set him at work, with the next in size as assistant, in the flower-garden, with her little hoe and rake. The other, a very little boy, complained that she gave him no place.
“You wait till I ognize, and I’ll put you somewhere,” said Min; but pretty soon he got tired of the tediousness of the “ognizing” process, and called loudly for office.
“Well,” said Min, “you may go into the pouponnat as the biggest poupon, marching at the head. That will be quite nice.”
But the little boy thought the honor of head poupon a very questionable one, especially as the poupons were all big dolls, whose marching powers he held in contempt, and he told her so in very plain words. Then the autocrat informed him that he “shouldn’t be nothing;” whereupon he raised a revolt, and Min announced that there would be no more Social Palace that day. She was highly disgusted at the rebellion of her subjects, and even scolded Monsieur Godin for the lax manner in which he had repelled the encroachment of the enemies, who constantly were allowed to come under the gate.
“I know I haven’t done very well,” he said, humbly, “but I am a novice; never played Social Palace before, ’pon my word.”
After the children were gone, he called her to him, and tried to interest her and make her like him; but she submitted to his kisses with a bad grace.