Ch. 42: Beelzebub in America -- bosom friends

"While the mistresses
were berating this poor
Elizabeth, all the pupils
of the institute gathered
around them, and the
headmistress herself
came up and, having
learned what it was
all about, began in
her turn to castigate
Elizabeth.

'Shame on you!' she cried,
'Using a word considered so
very, very indecent.'

"At last Elizabeth could
contain herself no longer
and, bursting into tears,
she asked:

'But what should I have
called that quadruped
animal if it actually
is a bull?'

"'The word you have used
for that animal,' said the
headmistress, 'is what
the riffraff call it.
But you, since you are
here in the institute,
are no longer one of
the riffraff, so you
should always find
out how to call
indecent things
by names that do
not sound indecent
to the ear.

'For instance, when you
saw that indecent animal
and wanted your friend to
look at it, you should have
called:

"Look, Mary, there
goes a beefsteak,"

or

"Mary, look, there goes
something that is very
good to eat when we are
hungry," and so forth.

"All this made poor Elizabeth
so distraught—-especially as
she was being reprimanded in
the presence of all her friends—-
that she could contain herself
no longer, and cried out with
all her might.