“I’m glad,” I said, “that she got one plural right. By the way, I wonder what the plural of that phrase really is. It can’t be sines qua non, and yet sine quibus sounds pedantic.”
I said this in the hope of mitigating Thormanby’s wrath by turning his thoughts into another channel.
I failed. He merely growled again. I went on reading the letter:
“You will observe at once that the Archdeacon, whom we should all like to have as our new bishop, possesses every requirement for the office except one, number fifteen on the enclosed list, marked for convenience of reference, with a violet asterisk.”
“What is the missing sine qua?” I asked. “Don’t tell me if it’s private.”
“It’s—it’s—damn it all, look for yourself.” He flung a typewritten sheet of foolscap at me. I picked my way carefully among the red and black crosses until I came to the violet asterisk.
“No. 15. ‘A bishop must be the husband of one wife’—I Tim: III.”
“That’s rather a poser,” I said, “if true. It seems to me to put the Archdeacon out of the running straight off.”
“No. It doesn’t,” said Thormanby. “That’s where the girl’s infernal insolence comes in.”
I read: