“I am glad to hear that, Glynn,” replied the child, holding out her hand, while a smile lighted up her face and smoothed out the lines of anxiety from her brow. “Come and sit by me, Glynn, and tell me what like it is. I wish so much that I had been on deck. Was it grand, Glynn?”
“It was uncommonly grand; it was even terrible—but I cannot sit with you more than a minute, else my shipmates will say that I’m skulking.”
“Skulking, Glynn! What is that?”
“Why, it’s—it’s shirking work, you know,” said Glynn, somewhat puzzled.
Ailie laughed. “But you forget that I don’t know what ‘shirking’ means. You must explain that too.”
“How terribly green you are, Ailie.”
“No! am I?” exclaimed the child in some surprise. “What can have done it? I’m not sick.”
Glynn laughed outright at this, and then proceeded to explain the meaning of the slang phraseology he had used. “Green, you must know, means ignorant,” he began.
“How funny! I wonder why.”
“Well, I don’t know exactly. Perhaps it’s because when a fellow’s asked to answer questions he don’t understand, he’s apt to turn either blue with rage or yellow with fear—or both; and that, you know, would make him green. I’ve heard it said that it implies a comparison of men to plants—very young ones, you know, that are just up, just born, as it were, and have not had much experience of life, are green of course—but I like my own definition best.”