forward and took off his hat, and then I perceived the reason for this.
He had no eyebrows whatever, and of his hair nothing remained but a
scrubby dust, giving to his head the appearance of a hard-boiled egg,
skinned and sprinkled with black pepper.

"That was a handsome lad this time last week, with naturally curly hair,"
remarked the lady. She spoke with a rising inflection, suggestive of the
beginning of things.

"What has happened to him?" asked our chief.

"This is what's happened to him," retorted the lady. She drew from her
muff a copy of our last week's issue, with my article on hydrogen gas
scored in pencil, and flung it before his eyes. Our chief took it and
read it through.

"He was 'Balloonist'?" queried the chief.

"He was 'Balloonist,'" admitted the lady, "the poor innocent child, and
now look at him!"

"Maybe it'll grow again," suggested our chief.

"Maybe it will," retorted the lady, her key continuing to rise, "and
maybe it won't. What I want to know is what you are going to do for
him."

Our chief suggested a hair wash. I thought at first she was going to fly
at him; but for the moment she confined herself to words. It appears she
was not thinking of a hair wash, but of compensation. She also made
observations on the general character of our paper, its utility, its
claim to public support, the sense and wisdom of its contributors.

"I really don't see that it is our fault," urged the chief--he was a mild-
mannered man; "he asked for information, and he got it."

"Don't you try to be funny about it," said the lady (he had not meant to
be funny, I am sure; levity was not his failing) "or you'll get something
that _you_ haven't asked for. Why, for two pins," said the lady, with a
suddenness that sent us both flying like scuttled chickens behind our
respective chairs, "I'd come round and make your head like it!" I take
it, she meant like the boy's. She also added observations upon our
chief's personal appearance, that were distinctly in bad taste. She was
not a nice woman by any means.

Myself, I am of opinion that had she brought the action she threatened,
she would have had no case; but our chief was a man who had had
experience of the law, and his principle was always to avoid it. I have
heard him say:

"If a man stopped me in the street and demanded of me my watch, I should
refuse to give it to him. If he threatened to take it by force, I feel I
should, though not a fighti