"We were discussing a kilt," Jerry prompted.
"If a body kiss a body, need a body cry," sang Captain Wully's baritone.
But, eventually, Captain Wully and the scissors were seated at the table behind a round magnifying mirror. "It begins with Gertrude. You remember how she scooted through the studio this afternoon with a werewolf after her?"
"How stupid of me not to realize."
"I felt Gertrude needed help. I caught up with the werewolf and gave him a piece of my mind. 'Pretty small potatoes,' I says, 'when a werewolf chases cats. You must be pretty second-rate to have fallen so low. A regular lamb in wolf's clothing.' 'I'll have you know,' he says, 'I'm pretty hot stuff. Related to Dracula on my mammy's side, and to Frankenstein on my pappy's.'"
The scissors snipped rapidly, and bits of pink mustache littered the unswept floor.
"'A renegade,' I says. 'Your family must be awfully proud of you. Chasing cats!' Ouch—" as the scissors slipped. "I says, 'Where do you live?' And he says, 'Down the road a piece. I'm lapdog for an Indian princess.' 'I think,' I says, usin' my head real quick like, 'I better see you home and see what your mistress has to say about this.'"
The mustache having been whittled to a tailored toothbrush. Captain Wully started on his beard. "You should see her, laddie. A real Indian princess, left over from a Lovers Leap. Bein' four hundred years old, she's real aristocracy and doesn't mingle with younger ghosts, which is why I never seen her before. Myself, I'm three score and hardly in her class. Although I must say she took a shine to me. But Indian braves don't wear beards."
Captain Wully put down the razor and revealed that he too was beardless. "Sporran, silver buckles and all the fixin's I got in my sea-chest—but my kilt went down wi' my ship."
When Captain Wully realized Heather Higgins had taken the plaid skirt home, he was inconsolable.