Page:Paine--J Archibauld McKaney collector of whiskers.djvu/189

  "And you won't blame her a bit. It seems that when she was a slip of a girl, in her early teens, her maternal uncle, Jedediah Stokes by name, wore a set of whiskers of which he was tremendously fond. As well as I can gather from her rough description, they were of the Chin-warmer Vulgaris pattern—a very common growth, as you know, sir, with no artistic merit whatever. You have a plate and description of the variety in the Illustrated Catalogue. This Jedediah Stokes was a retired sea captain, who had piled up in the East India trade what amounted to a large fortune for a small New England town. This fortune he had willed to his widowed sister (who was the mother of the young missionary person) and to her children.

"The old barnacle lived with the Barnstable family, and being somewhat infirm by reason of his hardships endured at sea, he often fell asleep while reading beside the parlor table over which he used to flop with his head in his hands. His youngest nephew, a high-spirited boy of twelve, used to watch this [171