Rosie of the River by Catherine Cookson

Author:Catherine Cookson [Cookson, Catherine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781780360300
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

‘“Just that, Miss,” I said.

‘“Well, go on,” she said, “I’m waiting.”

‘“Well, it’s like this, Miss. I’ll put me cards on the table. I know I’m not fit yet to come to your school and a schoolmaster friend of mine put it plainly to me what I should do.”

‘“You have a schoolmaster friend?” she said.

‘“Aye, I have,” I said; “and he teaches maths in a grammar school.”

‘“Oh. And which grammar school is that?”

‘“In Hastings, ma’am. And he’s been to Oxford.”

‘She smiled, and I think she almost laughed. I didn’t know whether you’d been to Oxford or Cambridge but I knew you must have been to some big university, so I picked on Oxford.’

Fred was laughing again as he said, ‘You did right there, Rosie, you did right there. Go on. Go on.’

‘Well, she said to me, “And what idea has this schoolmaster put into your head about your education?”

‘“Well, Miss,” I said, “he advised me to have at least six months’ tuition in English and learning how to…” Well, you see, it’s like this. I got all flummoxed here, Mrs C, and I had to be meself, so I just blurted out, “I’ve got the habit of swearing. I read a lot, oh; I read piles and I’ve got all the words in me head and I know where they should go, but when people get nasty or look down their nose at me I get ratty, and so I use my own language at them.”

‘“And your own language is what?” she said.

‘“Well, you could say bad language, ma’am,” I said.

‘“You use bad language?” she said.

‘“Oh,” I put in here, “I don’t mean four-letter words—I never use those—it’s just bloody, bugger, damn and blast, and things like that, and they come out instead of the words I want to use.”’

She started to giggle again, saying, ‘D’you know what happened next?’

Laughing her head off, Sally suggested, ‘She fell across the table in a dead faint.’

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