Lady A. (stifling a yawn). Dear me, Bishop.
Bishop. Yes: and it appeared that he considered the chief of his blessings to be that he had had twenty-three children. And while I was trying to find words to express my opinion that some people might regard that as a not unmixed blessing, a black-eyed lady, whom I had observed to be listening with much attention to our conversation, leant across the table, and said with remarkable distinctness: ‘Only Sixteen by me, Mr. Polycarp.’”
“Good-night, Miller. Good-night, Mr. Inspector.”
Solvuntur risu tabulae; they all went home. But the night was still young, and Miller and I drew up our chairs to the fire.
“Good men, and true!” said the Rural Dean, turning over in his hands a bundle of the Oxford postcards. I was turning over in my mind the men to whom I had just bidden farewell. One puzzled me:
“Who was the big man with gold spectacles, sitting next O’Brien; hardly spoke a word all the time?” I asked.
“Gold spectacles? Oh, old Weights of Slobury; most worthy, but not lively. There is a story of him. It is said that when the new railway was being made through his parish, he one day paid a pastoral visit to the navvies’ huts; and having gained admission to one hut, he talked and read till the master grew weary, and suggested that it was about tea-time. Weights took the hint, and his leave. As he closed the door, the man pointed compassionately over his shoulder at the ponderously retreating figure, and muttered:
“‘Theer goos a good navvy—spiled.’”
“But here, Inspector,” he continued, “here is a postcard that will suit you. You were at Balliol, were you not?”
He gave it to me, and it may be anglicised thus: