Page:Paine--J Archibauld McKaney collector of whiskers.djvu/97

  stood as if rooted to the floor Wilkins concluded:

"And while I was running to the scene I met old man Rust and Peter O'Dwyer staggerin' home from the village. Their whiskers had gone by the board, decks swept as clean as the back of my hand, sir. The Bumphauser pirate had loaded them with booze and gashed their whiskers off in the back room of the tavern. There ain't a whole Octave left, and the Hirsute Orchestra is fit for nothing but the junk-shop."

"Did you capture the infernal scoundrel?" I finally managed to gasp.

"He's bound and gagged in the stable, sir, and I left orders to hang him in his own whiskers if he moved an eyelash."

With sympathetic accord my guests stole into the dining room, and as soon as possible I begged them to excuse me for the night. As I fairly tottered into the hall, leaning on the arms of my faithful Wilkins I said to him: "I want to forget it all for a while. It is the most crushing blow of my long life. We [79