never _could_ get as big as that! Nor wiggle.

The Professor, being deprived of his volume, seemed to awake
compulsorily, and come out into a cold, unlearned world. But he
smiled amiably, and rubbed his hands round themselves rhythmically.

"Well, then!" said he. "Say it all again."

"Say what, papa?"

"All the chatter, of course."

"What for, papa?"

"For me to hear. Off we go! _Who's_ going to be married?"

"You see, he was listening all the time. _I_ shouldn't tell him, if
I were you. Your father is really unendurable. And he gets worse."
Thus the lady of the house.

"What does your mother say?" There is a shade of asperity in the
Professor's voice.

"Says you were listening all the time, papa. So you were!" This is
from Laetitia's younger sister, Theeny. Her name was Athene. Her brother
Egerton called her "Gallows Athene"--an offensive perversion of the
name of the lady she was called after. Her mother had carefully taught
all her children contempt for their father from earliest childhood. But
toleration of his weaknesses--etymology, and so on--had taken root in
spite of her motherly care, and the Professor was on very good terms
with his offspring. He negatived Theeny amiably.

"No, my dear, I was like Mrs. Cluppins. The voices were loud, and
forced themselves upon my ear. But as you all spoke at once, I have
no idea what anybody said. My question was conjectural--purely
conjectural. _Is_ anybody going to marry anybody? _I_ don't know."

"What is your father talking about over there? _Is_ he going to help
that tongue or not? Ask him." For a peculiarity in this family was that
the two heads of it always spoke to one another through an agent. So
clearly was this understood that direct speech between them, on its
rare occasions, was always ascribed by distant hearers to an outbreak
of hostilities. If either speaker had addressed the other by name, the
advent of the Sergeant-at-Arms would have been the next thing looked
for. On this occasion Laetitia's literal transmission of "_Are_ you
going to help the tongue or not, papa?" recalled his wandering mind
to his responsibilities. Sally's liver-wing--she was the visitor--was
pleading at his elbow for its complement of tongue.

But soon a four-inch space intervened between the lonely tongue-tip
on the dish and what had once been, in military language, its base
of operations. Everybody that took tongue had got tongue.

"Well, then, how about who's married wh