hairman, however, stopped the discussion
peremptorily, and again asked (this time a very aged priest) the
question he had put to Father Delany. The old man answered promptly:--

"The zucchetto, or pileolus, is removed at the end of the last secret
prayer, and resumed after the ablutions."

"Quite right," said the chairman.

"By the way," said the old man, "you pronounce that word pileolus.
The word is pileolus."

"The word is pileolus," said the chairman, whose throne wasn't
exactly lined with velvet this day.

"Pardon me. The word is pileolus. You find it as such in the
scansions of Horace."

"This is your province, Father Dan," said the bishop. "There's no one in
the diocese so well qualified to adjudicate here--"

"'Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona
Multi--'

my Lord!" said I. I was drawing the bishop out. "There were ironical
cheers at 'Agamemnona.'"

"'Mutato nomine, de te
Fabula narratur,'"

said the bishop, smiling. "Of course, we have many a rich depositary of
classical lore here,

"'At suave est ex magno tollere acervo.'"

"My Lord," said I, pointing around the table,

"'Omnes hi metuunt versus, odere poetas,'"--

("Oh! Oh! Oh!" from the Conference.)

"'Nec recito cuiquam nisi amicis, idque coactus
Non ubivis coramve quibuslibet.'"

Here the Master of Conference, seeing that the bishop was getting the
worst of it, though his Lordship is a profound scholar, broke in:--

"'Ohe!
Jam satis est! Dum aes exigitur, dum mula ligatur,
Tota abit hora.'"

He looked at me significantly when he said, "dum mula ligatur," but I
had the victory, and I didn't mind.

"Now, look here, Father Dan, you're simply intolerable. The Conference
can't get along so long as you are here. You are forever intruding your
classics when we want theology."

"I call his Lordship and the Conference to witness," I said, "that I did
not originate this discussion. In fact, I passed over in charitable
silence the chairman's gross mispronunciation of an ordinary classical
word, although I suffered the tortures of Nessus by my forbearance--"

"There will be no end to this, my Lord," said the chairman. "That'll do,
Father Dan. Now, Father Irwin."

I was silent, but I winked softly at myself.

CHAPTER XXIII

A BATTLE OF GIANTS

"Now, Father Irwin," said the chairman, addressing a smart, keen-looking
young priest who sat at the en