“She not only motors,” the layman pursued, “but she can walk.  Can your mother walk?”

“I am sorry to say,” said the Archdeacon, “that my mother has to be helped a good deal.”

“Ha!” said the layman.

“But,” the Archdeacon continued, “she has all her other faculties.  Can your mother still read?”

“My mother is a most accomplished and assiduous knitter,” said the bearded man.

“No doubt, no doubt,” the Archdeacon agreed; “but my question was, Can she still read?”

“With glasses—­yes,” said the other.

“Ha!” exclaimed the Archdeacon, “I thought so.  Now my dear mother can still read the smallest print without glasses.”

We murmured our approval.

“And more,” the Archdeacon went on, “she can thread her own needle.”

We approved again.

“That’s all very well,” said the other, “but sight is not everything.  Can your mother hear?”

“She can hear all that I say to her,” replied the Archdeacon.

“Ah! but you probably raise your voice, and she is accustomed to it.  Could she hear a stranger?  Could she hear me?”

Remembering the tone of some of his after-lunch conversations I suggested that perhaps it would be well if on occasions she could not.  He glowered down such frivolousness and proceeded with his cross-examination.  “Are you trying to assure us that your mother is not in the least bit deaf?”

“Well,” the Archdeacon conceded, “I could not go so far as to say that her hearing is still perfect.”

The layman smiled his satisfaction.  “In other words,” he said, “she uses a trumpet?”

The Archdeacon was silent.

“She uses a trumpet, Sir?  Admit it.”

“Now and then,” said the Archdeacon, “my dear mother has recourse to that aid.”

“I knew it!” exclaimed the other.  “My mother can hear every word.  She goes to the theatre too.  Now your mother would have to go to the cinema if she wished to be entertained.”

“My mother,” said the Archdeacon, “would not be interested in the cinema” (he pronounced it ki-neema); “her mind is of a more serious turn.”

“My mother is young enough to be interested in anything,” said the other.  “And there is not one of her thirty-eight grandchildren of whose progress she is not kept closely informed.”

He leaned back with a gesture of triumph.

“How many grandchildren did you say?” the Archdeacon inquired.  “I didn’t quite catch.”

“Thirty-eight,” the other man replied.

Across the cleric’s ascetic features a happy smile slowly and conqueringly spread.  “My mother,” he said, “has fifty-two grandchildren.  And now,” he turned to me, “which of us would you say has won this entertaining contest?”

“I should not like to decide,” I said.  “I am—­fortunately perhaps for your mothers—­no Solomon.  My verdict is that both of you are wonderfully lucky men.”