_The Flag-bearer._ "COMRADE, THE REVOLUTION IS 'ERE!" _The Complete Butler._ "AR! WILL YOU KINDLY DELIVER IT AT THE HAREA HENTRANCE?"] * * * * * THE BATTLE OF THE MOTHERS. We were sitting in the smoking-room when the Venerable Archdeacon entered. He had been so long absent that we asked him the reason. Had he been ill? Ill? Not he. He never was better in his life. He had merely been on a motor tour with his mother. "Do you mean to say," someone inquired--an equally elderly member--almost with anger, certainly with a kind of outraged surprise, "that you have a mother still living?" "Of course I have," said the Man of God. "My mother is not only living but is in the pink of condition." "And how old is she?" the questioner continued. "She is ninety-one," said the Archdeacon proudly. Most of us looked at him with wonder and respect--even a touch of awe. "And still motoring!" I commented. "She delights in motoring." "Well," said the angry man, "you needn't be so conceited about it. You are not the only person with an aged mother. I have a mother too." We switched round to this new centre of surprise. It was more incredible that this man should have a mother even than the Archdeacon. No one had ever suspected him of anything so extreme, for he had a long white beard and hobbled with a stick. "And how old may your mother be?" the Archdeacon inquired. "My mother is ninety-two." "And is she well and hearty?" "My mother," he replied, "is in rude health--or, as you would say, full of beans." The Archdeacon made a deprecatory movement, repudiating the metaphor. "She not only motors," the layman pursued, "but she can walk. Can your mother walk?" "I am sorry to say," said the Archdeacon, "that my mother has to be helped a good deal." "Ha!" said the layman. "But," the Archdeacon continued, "she has all her other faculties. Can your mother still read?" "My mother is a most accomplished and assiduous knitter," said the bearded man. "No doubt, no doubt," the Archdeacon agreed; "but my question was, Can she still read?" "With glasses--yes," said the other. "Ha!" exclaimed the Archdeacon, "I thought so. Now my dear mother can still read the smallest print without glasses." We murmured our approval. "And more," the Archdeacon went on, "she can thread her own needle." We approved again. "That's all very well," said the other, "but sight is not everything. Can your mother hear?" "She can hear all that I say to her," replied the Archdeacon. "Ah! but you probably raise your voice, and she is accustomed to it. Could she hear a stranger? Could she hear me?" Remembering the tone of some of his after-lunch conversations I suggested that perhaps it would be well if on occasions she could not. He glowered down such frivolousness and proceeded with his cross-examination. "Are you trying to assure us that your mother is not in the least bit deaf?"