The Scarlet Plague

In The Beginning

"Going to string 'em," was the response. The three boys were now hard at it; and quite a knocking and hammering  arose, in which Granser babbled on unnoticed. "You are true savages. Already has begun the custom of wearing human  teeth. In another generation you will be perforating your noses and  ears and wearing ornaments of bone and shell. I know.

The human race  is doomed to sink back farther and farther into the primitive night  ere again it begins its bloody climb upward to civilization. When we  increase and feel the lack of room, we will proceed to kill one another.  And then I suppose you will wear human scalp-locks at your waist, as  well as you, Edwin, who are the gentlest of my grandsons, have already  begun with that vile pigtail. Throw it away, Edwin, boy; throw it away."

"What a gabble the old geezer makes," Hare-Lip remarked, when, the teeth  all extracted, they began an attempt at equal division. They were very quick and abrupt in their actions, and their speech, in  moments of hot discussion over the allotment of the choicer teeth, was  truly a gabble.

They spoke in monosyllables and short jerky sentences  that was more a gibberish than a language. And yet, through it ran hints  of grammatical construction, and appeared vestiges of the conjugation  of some superior culture.

Even the speech of Granser was so corrupt that  were it put down literally it would be almost so much nonsense to the  reader. This, however, was when he talked with the boys. When he got into the full swing of babbling to himself, it slowly purged  itself into pure English. The sentences grew longer and were enunciated  with a rhythm and ease that was reminiscent of the lecture platform. "Tell us about the Red Death, Granser," Hare-Lip demanded, when the  teeth affair had been satisfactorily concluded. "The Scarlet Death," Edwin corrected.

And so it ends...

"An' don't work all that funny lingo on us," Hare-Lip went on. "Talk  sensible, Granser, like a Santa Rosan ought to talk. Other Santa Rosans  don't talk like you." The old man showed pleasure in being thus called upon. He cleared his  throat and began. "Twenty or thirty years ago my story was in great demand. But in these  days nobody seems interested—" "There you go!" Hare-Lip cried hotly. "Cut out the funny stuff and talk  sensible. What's interested? You talk like a baby that don't know  how." "Let him alone," Edwin urged, "or he'll get mad and won't talk at all.  Skip the funny places. We'll catch on to some of what he tells us." "Let her go, Granser," Hoo-Hoo encouraged; for the old man was already  maundering about the disrespect for elders and the reversion