"They like Bob," explained Hamilton. "Don't you, Mr. Hunchberg? Yes, he
says they do extremely!" (He used such words as "extremely" often;
indeed, as Dowden said, he talked "like a child in a book," which was
due, I dare say, to his English mother.) "And I'm sure," the boy went
on, "that all the family will admire Cousin David. Yes, Mr. Hunchberg
says, he thinks they will."
And then (as Bob told me) he went almost out of his head with joy when
Beasley offered Mr. Hunchberg a cigar and struck a match for him to
light it.
"But WHAR," exclaimed the old darky, "whar in de name o' de good Gawd do
de chile git dem NAMES? Hit lak to SKEER me!"
That was a subject often debated between Dowden and me: there was
nothing in Wainwright that could have suggested them, and it did not
seem probable he could have remembered them from over the water. In my
opinion they were the inventions of that busy and lonely little brain.
I met the Hunchberg family, myself, the day after their arrival, and
Beasley, by that time, had become so well acquainted with them that he
could remember all their names, and helped in the introductions. There
was Mr. Hunchberg--evidently the child's favorite, for he was described
as the possessor of every engaging virtue--and there was that lively
matron, Mrs. Hunchberg; there were the Hunchberg young gentlemen, Tom,
Noble, and Grandee; and the young ladies, Miss Queen, Miss Marble, and
Miss Molanna--all exceedingly gay and pretty.
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