[A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens)]@TWC D-Link bookA Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court CHAPTER XV 12/14
Sir Marhaus the king's son of Ireland talks like all the rest; you ought to give him a brogue, or at least a characteristic expletive; by this means one would recognize him as soon as he spoke, without his ever being named. It is a common literary device with the great authors.
You should make him say, 'In this country, be jabers, came never knight since it was christened, but he found strange adventures, be jabers.' You see how much better that sounds." -- "came never knight but he found strange adventures, be jabers. Of a truth it doth indeed, fair lord, albeit 'tis passing hard to say, though peradventure that will not tarry but better speed with usage.
And then they rode to the damsels, and either saluted other, and the eldest had a garland of gold about her head, and she was threescore winter of age or more--" "The _damsel_ was ?" "Even so, dear lord--and her hair was white under the garland--" "Celluloid teeth, nine dollars a set, as like as not--the loose-fit kind, that go up and down like a portcullis when you eat, and fall out when you laugh." "The second damsel was of thirty winter of age, with a circlet of gold about her head.
The third damsel was but fifteen year of age--" Billows of thought came rolling over my soul, and the voice faded out of my hearing! Fifteen! Break--my heart! oh, my lost darling! Just her age who was so gentle, and lovely, and all the world to me, and whom I shall never see again! How the thought of her carries me back over wide seas of memory to a vague dim time, a happy time, so many, many centuries hence, when I used to wake in the soft summer mornings, out of sweet dreams of her, and say "Hello, Central!" just to hear her dear voice come melting back to me with a "Hello, Hank!" that was music of the spheres to my enchanted ear. She got three dollars a week, but she was worth it. I could not follow Alisande's further explanation of who our captured knights were, now--I mean in case she should ever get to explaining who they were.
My interest was gone, my thoughts were far away, and sad.
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