This
done, she stood him on his feet before Mrs. Morland, and desired him
to speak a speech for the company. The child put his thumb into his
mouth, and remained silent.
"Ma," said Jane Watkinson, "you had better tell him what speech to
speak."
"Speak Cato or Plato," said his mother. "Which do you call it? Come
now, Benny--how does it begin? 'You are quite right and reasonable,
Plato.' That's it."
"Speak Lucius," said his sister Jane. "Come now, Benny--say 'your
thoughts are turned on peace.'"
The little boy looked very much as if they were _not_, and as if
meditating an outbreak.
"No, no!" exclaimed Christopher, "let him say Hamlet. Come now,
Benny--'To be or not to be.'"
"It ain't to be at all," cried Benny, "and I won't speak the least bit
of it for any of you. I hate that speech!"
"Only see his obstinacy," said the solemn Joseph. "And is he to be
given up to?"
"Speak anything, Benny," said Mrs. Watkinson, "anything so that it is
only a speech."
All the Watkinson voices now began to clamor violently at the
obstinate child--"Speak a speech! speak a speech! speak a speech!" But
they had no more effect than the reiterated exhortations with which
nurses confuse the poor heads of babies, when they require them to
"shake a day-day--shake a day-day!"
Mrs.
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