Page:Paine--J Archibauld McKaney collector of whiskers.djvu/167

  mourn that all the brains of the family went to the inside of my head and all the red hair to the outside of my boy Hank's. That didn't help none, me being a bloomin' brunette by profession, and I logged it along on my humble but happy course until the man from Maaloo Island come sneakin' ashore with his damn conspiracy. It was kept under cover awful close for six months or so. And it was a sad day for me when I fell an easy prey to his horrid temptations. It wasn't natural for a white man to stay satisfied with such tupenny jobs as Captain of Police and Maker of Whisker Combs for the Palace by Royal Warrant. I was itching for authority in high places, but my whiskers couldn't match my ambitions.

"The man from Maaloo Island had me sized up as the abiding place of the cankerin' worm of ambition with a big A. And when me and my crew that was divin' after pearls was blown into Maaloo Island harbor by a gale of wind, he renewed his hellish overtures and unfolded his plot. Him and a pal of his [149