a dipper a _tin-kup_," said Gilbert
Brown.

"Yes," chimed in Willy Snow, "and he asks, 'Is school _took up_?' just
as if it was knitting-work that was on needles."

"How he rolls his r's!" said Peter Grant. "You can't say hor-r-se the
way he does! I'll bet _the ain't_ a boy can do it, unless it's a
Cahoojack." Peter meant _Hoosier_.

"Well, I wouldn't be seen saying _hoss_," returned Horace, with some
spirit; "that's _Yankee_."

"I guess the Yankees are as good as the Cahoojacks: wasn't your mother a
Yankee?"

"Yes," faltered Horace; "she was born up north here, in the Frigid
Zone; but she isn't so much relation to me as my father is, for her name
wasn't Clifford. She wouldn't have been _any_ relation to me if she
hadn't married my father!"

One or two of the larger boys laughed at this speech, and Horace, who
could never endure ridicule, stole quietly away.

"Now, boys, you behave," said Edward Snow, Willy's older brother; "he's
a smart little fellow, and it's mean to go to hurting his feelings. Come
back here, Spunky Clifford; let's have a game of _hi spy_!"

Horace was "as silent as a stone."

"He don't like to be called Spunky Clifford," said Johnny Bell; "do you,
Horace?"

"The reason I don't like it," replied the boy, "is because it's not my
name."

"Well, then," said Edward Snow, winking to the other boys, "won't you
play with us, _Master Horace_?"

"I'll not go back to be laughed at," replied he, stoutly: "when I'm home
I play with Hoosier boys, and they're politer than Yankees."

"'Twas only those big boys," said Johnny Bell; "now they've gone off.
Come, let's play something."

"I should think you'd be willing for us to laugh," added honest little
Willy Snow; "we can't help it, you talk so funny. We don't mean
anything."

"Well," said Horace, quite restored to good humor, and speaking with
some dignity, "you may laugh at me one kind of a way, but if you mean
_humph_ when you laugh, I won't stand it."

"_Woon't_ stand it!" echoed Peter Grant; "ain't that Dutch?"

"Dutch?" replied Horace: "I'll show you what _Dyche_ is! We have a
_Dyche_ teacher come in our school every day, and he stamps his foot and
tears round! 'Sei ruhig,' he says: that means, 'hush your mouth and keep
still.'"

"Is he a Jew, and does he stay in a synagogue?"

"No, he is a German _Luteran_, or a Dutch _Deformed_, or something that
way."

"What do you learn in?" said Johnny Bell.

"Why, in little German Readers: