Cardinal's Wit

Last week in Rome a clever hostess gave a dinner. She invited a witty Cardinal and, for him, a charming lady. But as the Cardinal drew up his chair to the table, he saw too many of the charms of the charming lady beside him; she was fashionably undressed above the waist. On her he bestowed one enfolding glance; then through every course but the last he courteously ignored her to her distress. For his dessert, he judiciously chose a ripe red apple, peeled it and halved it with care. On the charming lady's plate he set one half. "Why?" she smiled innocently back at him. "You must eat it," he admonished her, "for when Eve ate the apple she knew she was naked and felt ashamed."

Rome despatches, carefully censored, told no names. But in the shrewd reply, a smack of the old wit of white-haired Cardinal-Bishop Vincenzo Vannutelli, 91-year old Dean of the Sacred College, might be seen. Or, others guessed, of Cardinal-Bishop Gaetano de Lai, as famed for apt reply as sharp-tongued Irish divine. Dean Swift.