An old English gentleman told me an amusing story of a wig. A Dr. Wing, who wore a big wig and a long queue, visited a great lady, who was confined to her bed. The lady’s maid was present, having just brought in a bowl of hot gruel. As the old doctor was about to make some remark to the maid, as she held the bowl in her hands, he felt his queue, or tail to his wig, moving, when he turned suddenly round towards the lady, and looking with astonishment at his patient, he said,—
“Madam, were you pulling my tail?”
“Sir!” replied the lady, in equal astonishment and indignation.
Just then the tail gave another flop.
Whirling about like a top whipped by a school-boy, the doctor cried to the maid,—
“Zounds, woman, it was you who pulled my wig!”
“Me, sir!” exclaimed the affrighted lady’s maid.
“Yes, you, you hussy!”
“But, I beg your pardon—”
“Thunder and great guns, madam!” And the doctor whirled back on his pivoted heels towards the more astonished lady, who now had risen from her pillow by great effort, and sat in her night dress, gazing in profound terror upon the supposed drunken or insane doctor. Again the wig swung to and fro, like a clock pendulum. Again the old doctor, now all of a lather of sweat, spun round, and accused the girl of playing a “scaly trick” upon his dignified person.