"Can't I ..." Harold began.
"No, you can't. If those chickens' feathers...."
"They're pigeons' feathers," his nephew corrected him.
"If those feathers stuck in your hair are intended to convey an impression that you're a Red Indian chief, go and sit in your wigwam till breakfast and smoke the pipe of peace."
"Mother said I wasn't to smoke till I was twenty-one."
"Not literally, you young ass. Why, good heavens, in my young days such an allusion to Mayne Reid would have been eagerly taken up by any boy."
Something was going wrong with this conversation, John felt, and he added, lamely:
"Anyway, go away now."
"But, Uncle John, I...."
"Don't Uncle John me. I don't feel like an uncle this morning. Suppose I'd been shaving when you started that fool's game. I might have cut my head off."