Out of Town by Alice Meynell

To be on a "villeggiatura" with the children is to surprise them in ways and words not always evident in the London house. The narrow lodgings cause you to hear and overhear. Nothing is more curious to listen to than a young child's dramatic voice. The child, being a boy, assumes a deep, strong, and ultra-masculine note, and a swagger in his walk, and gives himself the name of the tallest of his father's friends. The tone is not only manly; it is a tone of affairs, and withal careless; it is intended to suggest business, and also the possession of a top-hat and a pipe, and is known in the family of the child as his "official voice."

One day it became more official than ever, and really more masculine than life; and it alternated with his own tones of three years old. In these, he asked with humility, "Will you let me go to heaven if I'm naughty? Will you?. Then he gave the reply in the tone of affairs, the official voice at its very best: "No, little boy, I won't!. It was evident that the infant was not assuming the character of his father's tallest friend this time, but had taken a role more exalted. His little sister of a year older seemed thoroughly to enjoy the humour of the situation. "Listen to him, mother. He's trying to talk like God. He often does."