beard, drooping almost to the waist. The effect was not good.

"Wait!"

Mr. Button seized a hospital shears and with three quick snaps
amputated a large section of the beard. But even with this improvement
the ensemble fell far short of perfection. The remaining brush of
scraggly hair, the watery eyes, the ancient teeth, seemed oddly out of
tone with the gaiety of the costume. Mr. Button, however, was
obdurate--he held out his hand. "Come along!" he said sternly.

His son took the hand trustingly. "What are you going to call me,
dad?" he quavered as they walked from the nursery--"just 'baby' for a
while? till you think of a better name?"

Mr. Button grunted. "I don't know," he answered harshly. "I think
we'll call you Methuselah."

3

Even after the new addition to the Button family had had his hair cut
short and then dyed to a sparse unnatural black, had had his face
shaved so close that it glistened, and had been attired in small-boy
clothes made to order by a flabbergasted tailor, it was impossible for
Button to ignore the fact that his son was a poor excuse for a first
family baby. Despite his aged stoop, Benjamin Button--for it was by
this name they called him instead of by the appropriate but invidious
Methuselah--was five feet eight inches tall. His clothes did not
conceal this, nor did the clipping and dyeing of his eyebrows disguise
the fact that the eyes under--were faded and watery and tired. In
fact, the baby-nurse who had been engaged in advance left the house
after one look, in a state of considerable indignation.

But Mr. Button persisted in his unwavering purpose. Benjamin was a
baby, and a baby he should remain. At first he declared that if
Benjamin didn't like warm milk he could go without food altogether,
but he was finally prevailed upon to allow his son bread and butter,
and even oatmeal by way of a compromise. One day he brought home a
rattle and, giving it to Benjamin, insisted in no uncertain terms that
he should "play with it," whereupon the old man took it with--a weary
expression and could be heard jingling it obediently at intervals
throughout the day.

There can be no doubt, though, that the rattle bored him, and that he
found other and more soothing amusements when he was left alone. For
instance, Mr. Button discovered one day that during the preceding week
he had smoked more cigars than ever before--a phenomenon, which was
explained a few days later when, entering the nursery