Page:Ballinger Price--Us and the Bottle Man.djvu/152

Rh "But how did you get un-oldened?" Greg asked.

"We thought you were a very old gentleman," I explained giddily.

"I am," said the Bottle Man. "Ancient."

"But what about your gray hairs?" Jerry demanded, tugging away at the oars.

"If you've more than one gray hair you've gray hairs," said our man. "I have eleven."

He ducked down his nice, dark, rumpled-up head for us to look, but I must say I could n't see more than one little one all buried among the black.

"You're grown up, but you're not old at all," I said. "We've been imagining you as an aged old man with a long white beard."

"I never mentioned a long white beard," the Bottle Man said.

"Yes; but what about your tottering 134