“Just then Joe Pulitzer came into camp, dragging a big lion by the tail he had just shot in a canebrake on the river.
“ ‘Vat’s dis?’ he asked, gazing through his spectacles at the two boxers who were hitting at each other and dodging around and at Paderewski, who was wailing and moaning at the loss of his scalp.
“ ‘I wouldn’t have taken $5,000 for that hair,’ he groaned.
“ ‘Vat vill you gif,’ said Pulitzer, ‘for another head of hair yoost as good?’
“He went up close to Paderewski and they whispered together for a few minutes. Then Joe got out a tape line and measured Paderewski’s head. Then he took a knife and cut out a piece the exact size from the back of the lion’s head and fitted it on Paderewski’s. He pressed it down close, and bound it with light bandages.
“It seems almost incredible, but in three days the skin had grown fast, the pain was gone, and Paderewski had the loveliest head of thick, tawny, flowing hair you ever laid your eyes on.
“I saw Paderewski give Pulitzer a check that evening behind the tent, and you can bet it was a stiff one. I don’t know the exact figure, but Joe bought out the World as soon as we got back to New York and has since done well.
“It simply made Paderewski’s fortune. That head of hair he wears will make him a millionaire yet. I never hear him bang down hard on the bass keys of a piano, but I think of a lion roaring in a South African forest, and I’ll bet he does, too.”