"He was like Samson. The loss of his hair seemed to deprive him of strength and courage. His belligerency departed from him. He became quiet and orderly, and during the rest of the passage never meddled with the apple-pies, but behaved with perfect decorum. He was soon afterwards seen on the anxious bench at a camp-meeting, and he is now a bald-headed Methodist preacher, remarkable for his piety and mild and dovelike disposition."
"The loss of his locks seems to have been of essential service to him," said Seddon.
"I wish, however, that I had given him back his hair," said the Professor. "I suffered severely in consequence of depriving him of it."
"In what way?" inquired Tom.
"It was retribution, I suppose," said the Professor. "As soon as I had pocketed the fellow's hair I began to lose my own. It fell out by handfuls, and in a few months I had a bald patch on the top of my head of ample area. It made me melancholy and poetical."
"I must confess that I cannot perceive any necessary connection between a bald head and poetry," said Toney.
"Why, Toney, my dear fellow," said the Professor, "you must know that when a man gets a bald pate he naturally begins to think of domestic bliss and connubial felicity, which are poetical subjects. If he meditates long on these subjects, versification will be the inevitable result. It was so in my case. As I titillated the top of my bald head with my forefinger, I plainly perceived that the time had come for me to marry. So, like a bird on Saint Valentine's day, I began to look around for a mate."
"You were like Dobbs, seeking for an angel and seven sweet little cherubs," said Tom.
"No, Mr. Seddon, I was seeking for a dovelike little woman, and I thought I had found one. In my imagination Dora was like a gentle white dove. I cooed around her, and courted for weeks, and wrote some verses in her album. I remember them well."