too, and burned them slowly and stood over the smoldering mass and
inhaled the fumes and the smoke which arose, because the country
wiseacres preached that no boughten stuff out of a drug store gave such
relief from asthma as this hornet's-nest treatment. But it remained for
this man to find a third use for such a thing. He brought it into the
office of Gafford's wagon yard, where some other men were sitting about
the fire, and he held it up before them and he said:

"Who does this here hornet's nest put you fellers in mind of--this gray
color all over it, and all these here fine lines runnin' back and forth
and every which-a-way like wrinkles? Think, now--it's somebody you all
know."

And when they had given it up as a puzzle too hard for them to guess he
said:

"Why, ain't it got percisely the same color and the same look about it
as Mr. Dudley Stackpole's face? Why, it's a perfect imitation of him!
That's whut I said to myself all in a flash when I first seen it
bouncin' on the end of this here black birch limb out yonder in the
flats."

"By gum, if you ain't right!" exclaimed one of the audience. "Say, come
to think about it, I wonder if spendin' all his nights with bright
lights burnin' round him is whut's give that old man that gray color
he's got, the same as this wasp's nest has got it, and all them puckery
lines round his eyes. Pore old devil, with the hags furever ridin' him!
Well, they tell me he's toler'ble well fixed in this world's goods, but
poor as I am, and him well off, I wouldn't trade places with him fur any
amount of money. I've got my peace of mind if I ain't got anything else