Isn't that a
good deal of a triumph? One knows the orders combined in this half-
breed's architecture without inquiring: one parent Northern, the other
Southern. To-day I heard a schoolmistress ask, 'Where is John gone?'
This form is so common - so nearly universal, in fact - that if she had
used 'whither' instead of 'where,' I think it would have sounded like an
affectation.
We picked up one excellent word - a word worth traveling to New Orleans
to get; a nice limber, expressive, handy word - 'lagniappe.' They
pronounce it lanny-yap. It is Spanish - so they said. We discovered it at
the head of a column of odds and ends in the Picayune, the first day;
heard twenty people use it the second; inquired what it meant the third;
adopted it and got facility in swinging it the fourth. It has a
restricted meaning, but I think the people spread it out a little when
they choose. It is the equivalent of the thirteenth roll in a 'baker's
dozen.' It is something thrown in, gratis, for good measure. The custom
originated in the Spanish quarter of the city. When a child or a servant
buys something in a shop - or even the mayor or the governor, for aught I
know - he finishes the operation by saying -
'Give me something for lagniappe.'
The shopman always responds; gives the child a bit of licorice-root,
gives the servant a cheap cigar or a spool of thread, gives the
governor - I don't know what he gives the governor; support, likely.
