Episode of the Titian Beard
tion. I could not help chuckling as I viewed the agitation of my guest.
"Welcome to my bachelor quarters, Mr. Wilkins," I cried. "Will you have something to drink before you go to your room to dress for dinner?"
"Can a duck swim?" fervently exclaimed Mr. Hank Wilkins. "Rye, if you please, sir, and I begin to think your intellect is getting its bearings. I never heard a saner speech—but all I've got to do about dressing for dinner is to comb the cockle-burrs out of my whiskers and report all standin'."
"Yes, your whiskers, of course," I absently murmured. "First in your thoughts, of course. Pardon me yes, you will find your clothes laid out and a man to help you into them."[1]
- ↑ Mr. McKackney being of a spare figure, it would have been impossible for the burly Hank Wilkins to insert himself in evening clothes belonging to his host, even with the aid of a shoe-horn. The butler, however, was a fine, upstanding man, who owed his long tenure of service to the possession of a set of the dignified gray whiskers popularly known as "mud-guards." It is to be presumed that some of his extra raiment was requisitioned. (Editor'sNote.)
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