And he built "a smasher" on the site of the old house, behind which the "Lizy Ann," or what there was left of it, was lying; and when the house was done, and furnished with the most gaudy and expensive furniture he could find in Boston and New York, he said it had just as good a right to a name as anybody! There was Tracy Park, and Grassy Spring, and Brier Hill, and Collingwood, and he'd be dumbed if he'd be outdone by any of 'em.
"He'd like to call it Lizy Ann," he said to Arthur, whom he met one day in the park, and to whom he began to talk of his new house. "He'd like to call it Lizy Ann, arter the old boat, for that craft was the beginnin' of his bein' anybody; but May Jane and Ann 'Liza wouldn't hear to it. They wanted some new-fangled foreign name; could Mr. Tracy suggest something?"
"How would 'Le Bateau' do? It is the French for 'the boat,' and might cover your difficulty," Arthur suggested.
"That's jest the checker. Lizy Ann with a new name, Lub—lub—what d'ye call her?" Peterkin said, and Arthur replied:
"Le Bateau."
"Yes, yes—Lubber-toe; that'll suit May Jane tip-top. Beats all what high notions she's got! Why, I don't s'pose she any more remembers that she used to wash Miss Atherton's stun steps than you remember somethin' that never happened. Do you?"
Arthur thought very likely that she did not, and Peterkin went on:
"You say it means a boat in French; canal, do you s'pose?"
Arthur did not think it mattered what boat, and Peterkin continued:
"Lubber-toe! Sounds droll, but I like it. I'll see an engraver to-day, but how do you spell the plaguy thing?"