Ralph D. Paine

“ And while I was running to the scene I met old man Rust and Peter O'Dwyer staggerin' home from the village. Their whiskers had gone by the board, decks swept as clean as the back of my hand, sir. The Bumphauser pirate had loaded them with booze and gashed their whiskers off in the back room of the tavern. There ain't a whole Octave left, and the Hirsute Orchestra is fit for nothing but the junk-shop. ”

“ The old gentleman rebelled at being put lower in the scale than the Portuguese sea-cook and swore that he outranked the "putty-faced son of a tea-kettle." The more intelligent members of the orchestra grasped the fact, however, that the longer and more luxuriant the whisker the lower must be the pitch of the resultant musical note, and that I had mastered the principle of the Æolian harp in a novel and startling manner. ”

“ With deft shears the bewildered barber altered, curtailed and harmonized the contrasting types of whiskers that were displayed along the ornate sequence of three octaves. By shortening the vibratory media the tones were easily raised, but when I found three sets of whiskers pitched too low, I was compelled to ask their owners to withdraw from rehearsals until the natural process of growth should lower their pitch.
When I dismissed the orchestra for the day I cautioned them to keep away from damp places lest the myriads of delicate strings of their "Æolians" should shrink and get out of tune. ”

“ He saw them going to and fro in groups and squads, and the sensational beard of Hank Wilkins also helped to confirm the black suspicions of Hans Bumphauser that these strangers had crowded him out of favor with the Lord of the Manor. He was even overheard to mutter, "Gott in Himmel, are these second-rate whiskers to make me forgotten already?" But no importance was attached to this ominous hint of what was shortly to befall.
Jealousy was flaming his grief into slow and sullen anger and he began to hunger for revenge. His thick wits could devise no way of harming the neglectful and fickle Mr. ”

“ The rehearsals were conducted day and night, and so far advanced were my plans three days before the date of the concert that I had the superb pleasure of listening to a programme of no less than eight popular airs played with notable beauty of expression. I had become like a man in a dream, and had lost all interest in other affairs. I therefore paid little attention to Hank Wilkins when he read me the following cablegram from Berlin:
"Bearded peasant shipped per instructions. ”