Page:Zangwill-King of schnorrers.djvu/388

374 374 FL UTTER-D UCK.

headed mother in repetitions was to put back the meal. Flutter- Duck was quite capable of breaking down, even in the middle, if her attention was distracted for a moment, and of trying back from the very beginning. She would, for example, get as far as " Hear — my daughter — the in- struction — of thy mother," giving out the words one by one in the sacred language which was to her abracadabra.

And little Rachel, equally in the dark, would repeat obe- diently, "Hear — my daughter — the instruction of — thy mother." Then the kettle would boil, or Flutter-Duck would overhear a remark made by one of the " hands," and interject: "Yes, I'd give him !' or, "A fat lot she knows about it," or some phrase of that sort ; after which she would grope for the lost thread of prayer, and end by ejac- ulating desperately : —

"Medidnif"

And the child sternly setting her face against this flip- pancy, there would be slapping and screaming, and if the father protested, Flutter-Duck would toss her head, and rejoin in her most dignified English : " If I bin a mother, I bin a mother ! "

To the logical adult it will be obvious that the little girl's obstinacy put the breakfast still further back ; but then, ob- stinate little girls are not logical, and when Rachel had been beaten she would eat no breakfast at all. She sat sullenly in the corner, her pretty face swollen by weeping, and her great black eyes suffused with tears. Only her father could coax her then. He would go so far as to allow her to nurse " Rebbitzin," without reminding her that the creat- ure's touch would make her forget all she knew, and convert her into a " cat's-head." And certainly Rachel always for- got not to touch the cat. Possibly the basis of her father's psychological superstition was the fact that the cat is an