Ralph D. Paine

“ We promise too, dear teacher, that
⁠All whiskers are taboo."
I assured Miss Hulda Barnstable that I had no designs on the morals of the youth of Lemuel Wilkins Island. Then, as diplomatically as possible, I tried to show her that she was playing the very deuce with the throne itself, that Wilkins without his whiskers could not last two minutes, and that the traditions of ages had established the system of choosing monarchs by this hirsute qualification, and that by virtue of his unique red whiskers he was a good deal more than a common or garden potentate of mortal origin. ”

“ Miss Hulda Barnstable is of that annoying New England type that can hear a call of duty from the Antipodes and is always cocked and primed to regenerate any community except its own. She was not asked to right any wrongs or save any souls on Lemuel Wilkins Island, but already she has expressed in the strongest language her contempt for an elderly gentleman who will waste his golden years in studying and collecting the Human Whisker. She has even begun to set the natives against me, and is actually preaching the damnable doctrine that their pride in their whiskers is sinful and disgusting. ”

“ And I shall do everything in my power to persuade Mr.—er—King Wilkins I to abandon his hideous whiskers, and to abolish them root and branch among his misguided subjects. And you are helping this idolatrous Whisker Cult as its High Priest. I have made a beginning with my school children, who repeat in chorus each day:
We'll never, never use the weed
⁠That bad men smoke and chew:
The wine cup shall not pass our lips ”

“ You have a plate and description of the variety in the Illustrated Catalogue. This Jedediah Stokes was a retired sea captain, who had piled up in the East India trade what amounted to a large fortune for a small New England town. ”