Chapter 9 - Page 2

at the same time that it is a shibboleth of learning, is a
disputed point, the very sounds of the vowels even being a matter of
national convention; the Latin word dux, for instance, being ducks
in England, docks in Italy, and dukes in France: yet there is a 'je
ne sais quoi,' a delicacy in the auricular taste of a true scholar,
that will rarely lead him astray when his ears are greeted with
words that have been used by Demosthenes or Cicero. [Footnote: Or
Chichero, or Kickero, whichever may happen to suit the prejudices of
the reader.] In the present instance I distinctly heard the word my-
bom-y-nos-fos-kom-i-ton, which I made sure was a verb in the dual
number and second person, of a Greek root, but of a signification
that I could not on the instant master, but which beyond a question
every scholar will recognize as having a strong analogy to a well-
known line in Homer. If I was puzzled with the syllables that
accidentally reached me, I was no less perplexed with the
intonations of the voices of the different speakers. While it was
easy to understand they were of the two sexes, they had no direct
affinity to the mumbling sibilations of the English, the vehement
monotony of the French, the gagging sonorousness of the Spaniards,
the noisy melody of the Italians, the ear-splitting octaves of the
Germans, or the undulating, head-over-heels enunciation of the
countrymen of my particular acquaintance Captain Noah Poke. Of all
the living languages of which I had any knowledge, the resemblance
was nearer to the Danish and Swedish than to any other; but I much
doubted at the time I first heard the syllables, and still question,
if there is exactly such a word as my-bom-y-nos-fos-kom-i-ton to be
found in even either of those tongues. I could no longer support the
suspense. The classical and learned doubts that beset me grew
intensely painful; and arising with the greatest caution, in order
not to alarm the speakers, I prepared to put an end to them all by
the simple and natural process of actual observation.

The voices came from the antechamber, the door of which was slightly
open. Throwing on a dressing-gown, and thrusting my feet into
slippers, I moved on tiptoe to the aperture, and placed my eye in
such a situation as enabled me to command a view of the persons of
those who were still earnestly talking in the adjoining room. All
surprise vanished the moment I found that the four monkeys were
grouped in a corner of the apartment, where they were carrying on a
very animated dialogue, the two oldest of the party (a male and a
female) being the principal speakers. It was not to be expected that
even a graduate of Oxford, although belonging to a sect so
proverbial for classical lore that many of them knew