One would play and one would sing (rather like the song in the children's book, "one could dance and one could sing, and one could play the violin"), and the third, the polyglot of the family, could speak several languages.

I swore that they should hear me yet, and proudly turned my back On polyglots in swallowtails, and left the beaten track.... They spoke the native language now; butit was too absurd Of none of their own idioms they apparently had heard!