They speak a language peculiarly their own, a language which not one in a thousand of their admirers can understand, yet it is one which, with a little attention, might be taught in our public schools with as much ease as French or Latin, and would richly repay the trouble of learning.
The remark of a man known as Captain Cuttle illustrates the want of education I refer to. He says, “I feel bound to read quotations of the funds every day, though I am unable to make out on any principle of navigation what the figures mean, and could very well dispense with the fractions.”
An equal ignorance is observable in reference to their servants or bodyguard. A comparatively small number of people know anything of their office and its duties, and it has become the fashion to speak of them with contempt, but I think most unreasonably.
I am no friend to ignorance, and will endeavour, while telling you my story, to throw some light upon these points. If I remember rightly, this will be in accordance with your wish conveyed to me in your introduction.
I do not think it would be easy to find a family whose health is such a matter of public solicitation and anxiety as mine. At rapid intervals during the day their pulse is felt, their temperature tested, the figures registered and posted up to public gaze. No sooner do they meet the eye of the anxious crowd than telegraphs and telephones are set to work to carry the announcement far and wide, and according to the knowledge possessed of these figures fortunes are made and fortunes are lost.
They are, as a rule, healthy children, but unfortunately they are dreadfully sensitive, rushing up madly to high spirits on the slightest of good news, and sinking into a state of depression at the very suggestion of a war or even a change of government. I have known even after-dinner speeches at the Mansion House and Guildhall affect them. Unless the state of their feelings were registered you would almost doubt the possibility of trusted creatures being so uncertain in their disposition.
I know that this morbid sensibility is as bad for my children as for those of any other parent, for do I not see advantage taken of it every day?
When their pulses run up to fever height in the morning there is no knowing how low their purses may be before night, for everyone who has studied their language and understands the state of their health by its means takes the opportunity of coming to them for money. The livelong day the plea is for money, which is never refused while my children have a penny.
Of course I am bound to acknowledge that there is another side to the picture, viz., that whenever through bad news they become so low and depressed that you think it impossible they can rally, help comes, and in a way you would not expect.
People no sooner read the bulletin, “Very low to-day,” than they empty their purses, collect their savings, write cheques for their balance at the bankers, and come and lay all at the feet of my children. It is a strange world, and I have a strange family, but so it is.