[3] He meant “Bother!”—a vulgar expression that only the strongest provocation can excuse.
[4] I should have thought he would have liked a gilded lordling, but you never can tell.
[5] This means that he always did exactly as he was told by those who knew better than he did. I hope my readers will all imitate his example, and then, perhaps, when they grow up they will also be rewarded by being placed at the head of an important Public Department.
[6] Sir Joseph was mistaken, but to do him justice, he believed that he was telling the truth. Josephine’s estimate of his character was much nearer the mark.
[7] “Diabolo” was not publicly played at the date of my story. The game was invented by Josephine, and she reserved it at first for her own entertainment; but eventually Messrs. Ayres of Aldersgate Street were induced to make it public, with considerable pecuniary results, all of which she handed over, like a good girl, to the Sailors’ Institute.
[8] The idea of Scorn wearing epaulettes is rather a fine figure of speech. I do not remember to have met it before.
[9] By ‘baby-farming’ she meant that she earned her living by taking in little children to nurse, while their Papas and Mamas were travelling on the Continent.
[10] A vulgar expression intended to imply that one of them belonged to a family of some social importance. It is not an expression that I can recommend for general use, but Little Buttercup wanted a rhyme for ‘nussed,’ and there was no other word handy that would do.
[11] That is to say, when their respective parents returned to England and reclaimed them.