* * * * *
[Illustration: SOCIAL SCIENCE.
_Lecturer._ "THERE IS A CUMULATIVE APPROXIMATIVENESS, SO TO SPEAK, A
PERIOD WHEN THE RECALCITRANT CORPUSCLES BEGIN TO "-------
_Stenographer._ "CON-FOUND THE FELLOW! I KNEW HE'D BREAK MY PENCIL WITH
HIS INFERNAL JAW-SMASHERS!"]
* * * * *
FOREIGN CORRESPONDENCE.
[BY ATLANTIC CABLE.]
ROME.
Being uneasy about our agent's course at the Vatican, I have come over
to Rome to see about it. He is an Irishman, with a little of Father TOM
in him, and has got into a "controversy" with his Holiness about
infallibility. Our African bishop (otherwise PHELIM BURKE) insists that
PUNCHINELLO is infallible! The Pope says this is ridiculous! Father
PHELIM replies that "there are two that can play that same game." I
found them in the midst of this when ANTONELLI ushered me into the Papal
presence. PIUS was up on his feet, talking Latin like a crack student of
the Propaganda. PHELIM had his sleeves rolled up. ANTONELLI, with a
"_Pax vobiscum_" got the two contending powers quieted down; and, after
a proper salutation from me, we began our talk. His Holiness is not much
on English. Says he, "I speak vat-I-can English." Had he said _non
possumus_ to it, it would have been better.
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