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 "Now, Mamma," he said plaintively. "Honey"

"Are you going to answer me? Who do you expect to have pat your shoulder in the next town? What are you"

"Now, Hon"

"Stop calling me that! What was all that secret planning you were doing just then?"

Tinker tried to look dignified and reproachful, partially succeeding. "We were talking about this Bishop," he said. "It was the tomb of this old Bishop we went down there to look at. He was a Bishop."

"Bishop!" The word infuriated her. "Do you have to whisper because you're talking about a Bishop?"

"Well" Tinker said gently, and then, casting about for some means to set himself in the right and Mrs. Tinker in the wrong, he had an inspiration that was a misfortune. "Well—he's dead, isn't he?"

Mrs. Tinker leaped straightway into her other mood. She wept aloud and was with difficulty restrained by Olivia from continuing to weep in that manner through the more populous modern streets upon the site of Augustine's ancient see of Hippo.