“ I! ”

“I mean what did you do when your married daughter told you this?”

“Oh, I made a fool of myself of course,” rejoined Wardle.

“Just so,” interposed Perker, who had accompanied this dialogue with sundry twitchings of his watch-chain, vindictive rubbings of his nose, and other symptoms of impatience. “That’s very natural; but how?”

“I went into a great passion and frightened my mother into a fit,” said Wardle.

“That was judicious,” remarked Perker; “and what else?”