Page:Paine--J Archibauld McKaney collector of whiskers.djvu/102

  He was fidgeting with impatience and knowing that he would not venture to call me for a trifling matter I left the game and followed him on deck. He begged my pardon and said:

"You might regret it if I didn't tell you at once, sir. But you have been after it for three years, and I never saw a finer"

"Not the Full-blooming Aurora pattern?" I gasped with a flash of intuition. "You don't mean that you have discovered a specimen of the rarest varieties of the Human Whisker?"

"I haven't examined them close," he replied, "but it looks that way, sir. You recall that imperfect imitation you have at home, sir the Hall Caine portrait in the billiard room? Well, that looks like a deck swab beside what I've found."

I was overjoyed and declared that I must see it at once. Wilkins chuckled with pleasure at my eagerness and as he led me aft he explained that the whiskers belonged to a second-cabin passenger, who looked like a 84]