"You hear that?" she asked me. I bowed sympathetically.

"What does he look like?" she insisted. "Just tell him for his own
good, please."

But this I could not do. True enough, during our short ride he had
been reminding me of one of a pair of cross-talk comedians I had once
seen in a music-hall. This, of course, was not a thing one could say.

"I dare say, Madam, he could be smartened up a bit. If I might take
him to some good-class shop----"

"And burn the things he's got on----" she broke in.

"Not this here necktie," interrupted Cousin Egbert rather stubbornly.
"It was give to me by Jeff Tuttle's littlest girl last Christmas; and
this here Prince Albert coat--what's the matter of it, I'd like to
know? It come right from the One Price Clothing Store at Red Gap, and
it's plenty good to go to funerals in----"

"And then to a barber-shop with him," went on Mrs. Effie, who had paid
no heed to his outburst. "Get him done right for once."

Her relative continued to nibble nervously at a bit of toast.

"I've done something with him myself," she said, watching him
narrowly. "At first he insisted on having the whole bill-of-fare for
breakfast, but I put my foot down, and now he's satisfied with the
continental breakfast. That goes to show he has something in him, if