“I won’t be cockawhooped up in any such style!”
“Are you going to let those men recognize you as the town treasurer of Levant?”
He glared at me and kept his foot up.
“We’re after the money—we’re after the money!” I urged. “Just think what a little thing this is you’re balking on, sir!”
“But you give me no hint as to how you expect to get the money! I’m at the end of my patience. I won’t submit to any more foolishness.”
“This isn’t foolishness, Judge Kingsley! It’s a precaution we must take. I’ve got a plan to keep those men from jumping out on us in the morning—and they’ll be sure to see you.” I pushed down his foot and I picked up the hair on the bed and looked resolute. “It’s got to be done, sir. I’m going to do it!”
He gave in to me as he had in other cases when I became savage, but I realized that fury boiled in him.
I made a mighty good job of it, if I do say so, but he angrily refused to look at himself in the glass. I used all the hair in his beard and gave him a mustache that fairly cut in half that hatchet face of his; his best friend would not have known Judge Kingsley.
I advised him to go to bed and to be sure to sleep on his back so that the mustache would not be disturbed.
I sharpened the carpenter’s pencil and hid the ball of twine under my coat, the judge looking at me as savage as a bear.