the secret would have seen; and having solemnly imposed the seal of secrecy upon his second, and essayed a wild and broken discourse upon the difference between total baldness and partial loss of hair, he disclosed to him the grand mystery of his existence, by lifting from the summit of his head a circular piece of wig, which in those days they called I believe, a ‘topping,’ leaving a bare shining disc exposed, about the size of a large pat of butter.

‘Upon my life, Thir, it’th a very fine piethe of work,’ says Puddock, who viewed the wiglet with the eye of a stage-property man, and held it by a top lock near the candle.  ’The very finetht piethe of work of the kind I ever thaw.  ’Tith thertainly French.  Oh, yeth—­we can’t do such thingth here.  By Jove, Thir, what a wig that man would make for Cato!’

‘An’ he must be a mane crature—­I say, a mane crature,’ pursued O’Flaherty, ’for there was not a soul in the town but Jerome, the—­the treacherous ape, that knew it.  It’s he that dhresses my head every morning behind the bed-curtain there, with the door locked.  And Nutter could never have found it out—­who was to tell him, unless that ojus French damon, that’s never done talkin’ about it;’ and O’Flaherty strode heavily up and down the room with his hands in his breeches’ pockets, muttering savage invectives, pitching his head from side to side, and whisking round at the turns in a way to show how strongly he was wrought upon.

‘Come in, Sorr!’ thundered O’Flaherty, unlocking the door, in reply to a knock, and expecting to see his ‘ojus French damon.’  But it was a tall fattish stranger, rather flashily dressed, but a little soiled, with a black wig, and a rollicking red face, showing a good deal of chin and jaw.

O’Flaherty made his grandest bow, quite forgetting the exposure at the top of his head; and Puddock stood rather shocked, with the candle in one hand and O’Flaherty’s scalp in the other.

‘You come, Sir, I presume, from Mr. Nutter,’ said O’Flaherty, with lofty courtesy.  This, Sir, is my friend, Lieutenant Puddock of the Royal Irish Artillery, who does me the honour to support me with his advice and—­’

As he moved his hand towards Puddock, he saw his scalp dangling between that gentleman’s finger and thumb, and became suddenly mute.  He clapped his hand upon his bare skull, and made an agitated pluck at that article, but missed, and disappeared, with an imprecation in Irish, behind the bed curtains.

‘If you will be so obliging, Sir, as to precede me into that room,’ lisped Puddock, with grave dignity, and waving O’Flaherty’s scalp slightly towards the door—­for Puddock never stooped to hide anything, and being a gentleman, pure and simple, was not ashamed or afraid to avow his deeds, words, and situations; ’I shall do myself the honour to follow.’

‘Gi’ me that,’ was heard in a vehement whisper from behind the curtains.  Puddock understood it, and restored the treasure.