id not hear that vulgar dog Nutter's
unmanly jokes?'

'Jokes!' repeated Puddock, in large perplexity, 'why I've been here in
this town for more than five years, and I never heard in all that time
that Nutter once made a joke--and upon my life, I don't think he could
make a joke, Sir, if he tried--I don't, indeed, Lieutenant O'Flaherty,
upon my honour!'

And rat it, Sir, how can I help it?' cried O'Flaherty, relapsing into
pathos.

'Help what?' demanded Puddock.

O'Flaherty took him by the hand, and gazing on his face with a maudlin,
lacklustre tenderness, said:--

'Absalom was caught by the hair of his head--he was, Puddock--long hair
or short hair, or (a hiccough) no hair at all, isn't it nature's doing,
I ask you my darlin' Puddock, _isn't_ it?' He was shedding tears again
very fast. 'There was Cicero and Julius Caesar, wor both as bald as
that,' and he thrust a shining sugar basin, bottom upward, into
Puddock's face. '_I'm_ not bald; I tell you I'm _not_--no, my darlin'
Puddock, I'm not--poor Hyacinth O'Flaherty is _not bald_,' shaking
Puddock by both hands.

'That's very plain, Sir, but I don't see your drift,' he replied.

'I want to tell you, Puddock, dear, if you'll only have a minute's
patience. The door can't fasten, divil bother it; come into the next
room;' and toppling a little in his walk, he led him solemnly into his
bed-room--the door of which he locked--somewhat to Puddock's
disquietude, who began to think him insane. Here having informed Puddock
that Nutter was driving at the one point the whole evening, as any one
that knew the secret would have seen; and having solemnly imposed the
seal of secrecy upon his second, and essayed a wild and broken discourse
upon the difference between total baldness and partial loss of hair, he
disclosed to him the grand mystery of his existence, by lifting from the
summit of his head a circular piece of wig, which in those days they
called I believe, a 'topping,' leaving a bare shining disc exposed,
about the size of a large pat of butter.

'Upon my life, Thir, it'th a very fine piethe of work,' says Puddock,
who viewed the wiglet with the eye of a stage-property man, and held it
by a top lock near the candle. 'The very finetht piethe of work of the
kind I ever thaw. 'Tith thertainly French. Oh, yeth--we can't do such
thingth here. By Jove, Thir, what a wig that man would make for Cato!'

'An' he must be a mane crature--I say, a mane crature,' pursued
O'Flahe