“Course not,” says Uncle Ike. “You’re one of the modestest fellers in town, but, Chet—it’s a secret and don’t whisper it to a soul—folks have said to me as how they ree-garded you as a feller of strikin’ appearance. Honest, Chet.”
“Hum!” says Chet again. “I aim to keep myself lookin’ as good as I kin. It’s a feller’s duty.”
“To be sure. That’s the way Chancy looks at it. I heard him sayin’ no later than yestiddy that he took consid’able pains with himself. He says you was perty good-lookin’, too. Yes, sir. Says he, if it wasn’t for him, you’d be about the best-lookin’ feller in the county.”
“Did, eh?” says Chet, mad-like. “Did, eh? Mind, I hain’t claimin’ to be handsomer ’n anybody else, but this I do say, and this I’ll stand by: if I wasn’t better-lookin’ than Chancy Miller I’d buy me a mask or raise whiskers, that’s what I’d do. Why,” says he, “Chancy’s pants bags at the knee.”
“So they do,” says Uncle Ike. “But Chancy alluded to your hair. Says your hair was all right as hair, but, says he, as a ornament it would be better if Chet was bald-headed.”
“Hair!” says Chet. “Does that there gangle-legged, pig-eyed, strawberry-topped imitation of a punkin’ lantern go around makin’ personal remarks about me? Maybe my hair hain’t curly, but, b’ jing, it looks like hair, and not like no throwed-away bed-springs.”
Well, just then who should come in sight but Chancy Miller, his hat on the back of his head so his frizzes would show, and a posy in his buttonhole. Uncle Ike spied him.
“Just alludin’ to you, Chancy,” he says. “We was discussin’ them ringlets of yourn. Chet here declares as how they favor worn-out bed-springs consid’able.”
Chancy scowled at Chet and took off his hat like he thought it was hot. That was a way of his. He was always looking for excuses to put his hair on exhibition.
“Chet hadn’t better do no talkin’ about hair,” says he. “If he was to get his shaved off and then tie a handkerchief over his head so what was left wouldn’t show, he’d look a sight more like a human bein’.”