"Really, Denny," she said, "it is sometimes a little difficult to be sure that you have got all your senses. How can you have 'nothing for breakfast' when you have bacon, and—who in the world ever taught you to say 'heggs'?"
"I meant to say 'neggs,'" said Denny very humbly. "Grandfather laughed at me because I didn't say 'hippotamus' right—I called it a 'nippotamus,' and he made me say 'hi-hi-hip,' and that's got me into the way of saying it to everything, like calling a negg, a hegg."
"A negg," repeated auntie slowly. "Can't you hear any difference between 'a negg,' and 'an egg'? Spell, a-n an, e-g-g egg."
Denny repeated it.
"What dedful jography Denny's having," observed Baby; "I can say a negg, quite right."
"And so you too call 'a negg' nothing for breakfast?" said auntie.
"Neggs and bacon is nothing for breakfast," answered Baby.
"Auntie," said Fritz, "you don't understand. We call it nothing for breakfast when there's not bread-and-milk, you know, for on bread-and-milk days we have just one little cup of tea and a bit of bread-and-butter after the bread-and-milk. But on Sundays, and birthdays, there's nothing for the first, and so we get better things, more like big people, and tea, and whatever there is, as soon as we begin. That's why we like 'nothing for breakfast,' do you see, auntie?"
"I see," said auntie, "but I certainly couldn't have guessed. I hope there's something for breakfast to-day for us, for I'm very hungry, and look, there's grandfather coming out to meet us, which looks as if he were hungry too. And what have you to say to it, old man?" she added, as Herr Baby came up the steps, one foot at a time, of course, "aren't you hungry after your walk?"
"Him's hungry for him's dinner, but not for him's breakfast; in course not," said Baby, with great dignity.