"Don't shout, Ernie. I mean are they painful?"
"Painful? Why should they be painful?"
"I really don't know, Ernie." She was being very patient and calm.
"I mean did you notice anything about them?" He was trying to be the same without much success.
"Just that you put your hand up to them as if they hurt."
"Oh." Great relief. "Yes, they do smart a little. I guess I've been using them too much. I'm putting some eye-drops in them now."
"Can I help you, Ernie? And shouldn't you see an opto ... ocu ... optha ... I mean an eye doctor?"
Ernie answered "No" to both those questions, but of course it took a lot more lying and improvising and general smoothing out before his sister would even pretend to be satisfied and stop her general nagging for the evening. She was getting uncomfortably cagy and curious lately, addicted to asking such questions out of a blue sky as:
"Ernie, when we were visiting Uncle Fabius, did you actually believe that you went out and bought gas?"
That one momentarily brought Ernie's stammer back, something which hadn't troubled him for years.