"You mean my wig, Tom?" enquired the Major, laughing, yet flushing a little.
"Wig?" murmured the Viscount, "after all, sir, there is a resemblance—though faint. Sure you never venture abroad in the thing?
"Why not?"
"'Twould be pasitively indecent, sir!"
Here the Major laughed, but the Sergeant, setting the furniture in place, scowled fixedly at the chair he chanced to be grasping.
"Perhaps 'tis time I got me a new one," said the Major, slipping into his coat.
"One!" exclaimed the Viscount. "O pink me, sir—a man of your standing and position needs a dozen. A wig, sir, is as capricious as a woman—it can make a gentleman a dowdy, a fool look wise and a wise man an ass, 'tis therefore a—what the——"
The Viscount rose and putting up his glass peered at his uncle in pained astonishment:
"Sir—sir," he faltered, "'tis a perfectly curst object that—may I venture to enquire——"
"What, my coat, Tom?"