Page:Paine--J Archibauld McKaney collector of whiskers.djvu/160

  old codger for twenty-odd years, and thought he was lost in the wreck of the Australia clipper Hyder Ally. I knew him the second he raised a yell in my wake and came runnin' after me, but I was a bit puzzled at first because he used to wear a beard, and now his face is as shy of hair as a china nest egg."

I coaxed the pair into my sitting room, and placed the briny and erratic parent behind a scotch-and-soda. He dipped his beak in the glass, threw back his head and slid the drink down his wizened throat without blinking. His offspring commented:

"He steams by fits and starts, sir. His safety-valve is pretty near due to blow off again and then you'll hear him waste language at an awful rate. Where have you been, dear father? You haven't squandered any postage stamps on your only child." The parent slapped the table with his skinny hand, smacked his lips and began to drone as if the lever of a phonograph had been released:

"The Hyder Ally was foundered in the Injun Ocean and I was the only man of her 142]