a glass which
stood near him and nodded his head at him in the most cool and impudent
way, as much as to say, "We understand each other perfectly--we are both
men of the world." Then he turned to the master of the house, and
steadfastly looking at his white night-cap, adjusted the wig he had
stolen in the most comical manner. Everybody present all the time was
roaring with laughter, in which no one joined more heartily than did the
master of the house.

"Come, come, Master Queerface, I want back my wig," he exclaimed, at
last; "my wig, old fellow--my wig--ha--ha--ha!"

But not a bit of it. Queerface was evidently too much delighted with
the ornament on his pate to think of abandoning it, and the more
vehement were the signs Mr Wilkie made the tighter did he haul it down
over his ears. As he sat up in a big chair, with the coloured
dressing-gown over his shoulders, and the wig hanging down on each side
of his head, Paddy declared that he looked exactly like a judge on the
bench.

"Will you or will you not give me up my wig?" at length exclaimed the
owner of it--but Queerface held it tighter than ever. "Take that,
then!" cried Mr Wilkie, recollecting a well-known story of his youth,
and seizing his white night-cap he flung it at Queerface. The monkey
was not slow to imitate the example, but whipping off the wig, he threw
it at the owner with one hand while he caught the white cap with the
other, and soon his ugly mug was grinning with delight from under it.
Mr Wilkie, having delivered over his wig to one of his negro servants
to be brushed and cleansed, begged his guests and family to begin
dinner. Adair and his brother midshipmen apologised for the behaviour
of their companion, but he assured them that he would not have missed
the fun on any account, and that his wig was not a bit the worse for
having been worn by the monkey.

After dinner they strolled out to see a monkey bread-tree, the baobab, a
huge monster which Mr Wilkie asserted was three or four thousand years
old. It was not more than seventy feet high, but the stem was close
upon thirty feet in diameter, with immensely long roots, while the
boughs hung down to the ground, forming altogether a wonderful mass of
verdure.

"A jolly abode for the monkeys," observed Adair. "I wonder whether my
friend Queerface would like to take up his lodgings there, if I were to
leave him on shore?"

Queerface seemed to understand the remark, and jumping up on Ada