or as if to carry out
his expressed intention in all earnestness. Lambert stopped him.

"He might not see the joke, Taterleg."

"He couldn't refuse a man a friendly turn like that, Duke. Look at him!
What's that feller rubbin' on him, do you reckon?"

"Ointment of some kind, I guess."

Taterleg stood with his bow legs so wide apart that a barrel could have
been pitched between them, watching the operation within the shop with
the greatest enjoyment.

"Goose grease, with _pre_-fume in it that cuts your breath. Look at that
feller shut his eyes and stretch his derned old neck! Just like a calf
when you rub him under the chin. Look at him--did you ever see anything
to match it?"

"Come on--let the man alone."

"Wrinkle remover, beauty restorer," said Taterleg, not moving forward an
inch upon his way. While he seemed to be struck with admiration for the
process of renovation, there was an unmistakable jeer in his tone which
the barber resented by a fierce look.

"You're goin' to get into trouble if you don't shut up," Lambert
cautioned.

"Look at him shut his old eyes and stretch his neck! Ain't it the
sweetest----"

The man in the chair lifted himself in sudden grimness, sat up from
between the barber's massaging hands, which still held their pose like
some sort of brace, turned a threatening look into the road. If half his
face was sufficient to raise the declaration from Taterleg that the man
was uglier than he, all of it surely proclaimed him the homeliest man in
the nation. His eyes were red, as from some long carousal, their lids
heavy and slow, his neck was long, and inflamed like an old gobbler's
when he inflates himself with his impotent rage.

He looked hard at the two men, so sour in his wrath, so comical in his
unmatched ugliness, that Lambert could not restrain a most unusual and
generous grin. Taterleg bared his head, bowing low, not a smile, not a
ripple of a smile, on his face.

"Mister, I take off my hat to you," he said.

"Yes, and I'll take your fool head off the first time I meet you!" the
man returned. He let himself back into the barber's waiting hands, a
growl deep in him, surly as an old dog that has been roused out of his
place in the middle of the road.

"General, I wouldn't hurt you for a purty, I wouldn't change your looks
for a dollar bill," said Taterleg.

"Wait till I git out of this chair!" the customer threatened, voice
smothered in the barber's hands.

"I guess he's no