"Oh, Baby," said Denny, "how you do 'saggerate! It _couldn't_ have been hundreds of years ago, because, you know, you weren't born then."
"Stupid girl!" said Baby, "how does you know? you wasn't there."
"Well, _you_ weren't there," said Denny again.
"Children, don't contradict each other. It's not nice," said auntie.
"Him didn't begin," said Baby, "t'were Denny beginned."
"I didn't. I only said _once_ that Baby wasn't born hundreds of years ago," said Denny, "and then he----"
Mother turned round at this. There was a funny look on her face, but still she spoke rather gravely.
"Baby, I don't know what's coming over you," she said. "It isn't like you to speak like that."
Baby's face grew red, and he turned his head away.
"Him didn't mean _zeally_ that ganfather were lazy," he said, in a low voice.
"It wasn't _that_ I was vexed with you for," said mother. "I know you were joking when you said that. I meant what you said to Denny."
"Him's werry sorry," said Baby, on the point of tears.
"Never mind. Don't cry about it," said mother, who really wanted the children to be very good and happy this first day. And she was a little afraid of Baby's beginning to cry, for, _sometimes_, once he had begun, it was not very easy to stop him.
"You don't understand about grandfather and his breakfast," said auntie. "Here nobody has big breakfast when they first get up except you children, who have the same that you have at home."
"No we don't," said Denny. "At home we have bread and milk every day except Sunday--on Sunday we have bacon or heggs, because that's the nothing-for-breakfast day."
"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."
"What dedful jography Denny's having," observed Baby; "I can say _a negg, quite_ right."