“My dear niece, if I may call you so,” remarked Mrs. Portheris urbanely, “it was thus that the builders designed this great monument to stand; in its inclination lies the triumph of their art.”

“I can’t say I agree with you there, Aunt Caroline,” said poppa; “that tower was never meant to stand crooked.  It’s a very serious defect, and if it happened nowadays, it would justify any Municipal Board in repudiating the contract.  Even those fellows, you see, were too sick to go on with it, in every case.  Begun by Bonanus 1174.  Bonanus saw what was going to happen and gave it up at the third storey.  Then Benenato had his show, got it up to four, and quit, 1203.  The next architect was—­let me see—­William of Innsbruck.  He put on a couple more, and by that time it began to look dangerous.  But nothing happened from 1260 to 1350, and it struck Tomaso Pisano that nothing would happen.  He risked it anyhow, ran up another storey, put the roof on, and came in for the credit of the whole miracle.  I expect Tomaso is at the bottom of that idea of yours, Aunt Caroline.  He would naturally give the reporters that view.”

Mrs. Portheris listened with a tolerance as badly put on as any garment she was wearing.  “I do not usually make assertions,” she said when poppa had finished, “without being convinced of the facts,” and I became aware for the first time that her upper lip wore a slight moustache.

“Well, you’ll excuse me, Aunt Caroline——­”

“All my life I have heard of the Leaning Tower of Pisa as a feat of architecture,” replied his Aunt Caroline firmly.  “I do not propose to have that view disturbed now.”

“Perhaps it was so, my dear love,” put in momma deprecatingly, and Mr. Dod, with a frenzied wink at poppa, called his attention to the ridiculous Pisan habit of putting immovable fringed carriage-tops on cabs.

“It undoubtedly was,” said Mrs. Portheris, with an embattled front.

“But—­Great Scott, aunt!” exclaimed poppa, recklessly, “think what this place was like—­all marsh, with the sea right alongside; not four miles off as it is now.  Why, you couldn’t base so much as a calculation on it!”

“I must say,” said Mrs. Portheris in severe surprise, “I knew that America had made great advances in the world of invention, but I did not expect to find what looks much like jealousy of the achievements of an older civilisation.”

The Senator looked at his aunt, then he put his hat further back on his head and cleared his throat.  I prepared for the worst, and the worst would undoubtedly have come if Dicky Dod had not suddenly remembered having seen a man with a foreign telegram looking for somebody in the Cathedral.

“It’s a feat!” reiterated Mrs. Portheris as the Senator left us in pursuit of the man with the telegram.

“It’s fourteen feet,” cried the Senator from a safe distance, “out of the perpendicular!” and left us to take the consequences.