However, he was found to be six inches too short, so they let him go, and he hurried off, saying, “I shall have the Law on you for this, measuring a man in a public place without being licensed as a tailor.”

The third disturbance due to Bill’s suspicions occurred while Bunyip Bluegum was in a grocer’s shop.  They had run out of tea and sugar, and happening to pass through the town of Bungledoo took the opportunity of laying in a fresh supply.  If Bunyip hadn’t been in the shop, as was pointed out afterwards, the trouble wouldn’t have occurred.  The first he heard of it was a scream of “Help, help, murder is being done!” and rushing out of the shop, what was his amazement to see no less a person than his Uncle Wattleberry bounding and plunging about the road with Bill hanging on to his whiskers, and Sam hanging on to one leg.

“I’ve got him,” shouted Bill.  “Catch a holt of his other leg and give me a chance to get his whiskers off.”

“But why are you taking his whiskers off?” inquired Bunyip Bluegum.

“Because they’re stuck on with glue,” shouted Bill.  “I saw it at a glance.  It’s Watkin Wombat, Esquire, disguised as a company promoter.”

“Dear me,” said Bunyip, hurriedly, “you are making a mistake.  This is not a puddin’-thief, this is an Uncle.”

“A what?” exclaimed Bill, letting go the whiskers.  “An Uncle,” replied Bunyip Bluegum.

“An Uncle,” roared Uncle Wattleberry.  “An Uncle of the highest integrity.  You have most disgracefully and unmercifully pulled an Uncle’s whiskers.”

“I can assure you,” said Bill, “I pulled them under the delusion that you was a disguised Wombat.”

“That is no excuse, sir,” bellowed Uncle Wattleberry.  “No one but an unmitigated ruffian would pull an Uncle’s whiskers.

“Who but the basest scoundrel, double-dyed,
Would pluck an Uncle’s whiskers in their pride,
What baseness, then, doth such a man disclose
Who’d raise a hand to pluck an Uncle’s nose?”

“If I’ve gone too far,” said Bill, “I apologize.  If I’d known you was an Uncle I wouldn’t have done it.”

“Apologies are totally inadequate,” shouted Uncle Wattleberry.  “Nothing short of felling you to the earth with an umbrella could possibly atone for the outrage.  You are a danger to the whisker growing public.  You have knocked my hat off, pulled my whiskers, and tried to remove my nose.”

“Pullin’ your nose,” said Bill, solemnly, “is a mistake any man might make, for I put it to all present, as man to man, if that nose don’t look as if it’s only gummed on.”

All present were forced to admit that it was a mistake that any man might make.  “Any man,” as Sam remarked, “would think he was doing you a kindness by trying to pull it off.”

“Allow me to point out also, my dear Uncle,” said Bunyip Bluegum, “that your whiskers were responsible for this seeming outrage.  Let your anger, then, be assuaged by the consciousness that you are the victim, not of malice, but of the misfortune of wearing whiskers.”