——THEY are _Socrates_’s children, said my uncle _Toby._ He has been
dead a hundred years ago, replied my mother.
My uncle _Toby_ was no chronologer—so not caring to advance one step
but upon safe ground, he laid down his pipe deliberately upon the
table, and rising up, and taking my mother most kindly by the hand,
without saying another word, either good or bad, to her, he led her out
after my father, that he might finish the ecclaircissement himself.