“For goodness’ sake! how long have you been carrying that?” cried Gussie, quite horrified at the sight.

Plaisted turned his head, and understood at a glance the meaning of Dexie’s words.  Then, angrily grasping the cause of offence, he endeavored to remove it, till an ominous sound of tearing cloth caused him to desist.

“Take it off! take it off!  You, Dexter!” he cried, backing around to her.  “Take off that trash, I say!”

But that word “Dexter” sealed all chance of help as far as Dexie was concerned, for she put her hands behind her back and surveyed him scornfully.

“Not I!  I wouldn’t disfigure you for worlds; it quite completes your appearance.  It would be a sin to remove what Nature seems to have forgotten in your make-up.”

“Do take it off for him, Dexie,” said Gussie, coaxingly.  I would myself, only I don’t want to dirty my hands.”

“And do you think that Dexter is going to soil her beautiful hands by touching the dirty rags?  No; Dexter is not!  There might be smallpox on them for all I know; I’m sure they’re spotted enough.”

Plaisted turned and twisted himself this way and that, in vain endeavors to reach the back of his coat, but could not manage it; and as he stood for a minute, his hands held out in front of him, while he looked over his shoulder at the unwelcome appendage, he did indeed present a woful figure.

“Why don’t you take your coat off?” Gussie said at last.

“Oh! confound it; I never thought of that,” as he twisted himself out of his coat.

“Why, of course you didn’t think of it,” retorted Dexie.  “How could you be expected to?  Everybody knows that creatures with tails are not supposed to think at all.”

“Dexie, I’ll tell papa if you won’t stop; you are impudent,” Gussie said, sharply.

“Do tell papa, Gussie.  I only wish he were here to see the sight himself.  He does not know what he is missing by being late for dinner.  It is too bad that he must get the story second-hand, when he might have enjoyed the edifying sight himself if he had only been on time.”

“I’d like to see the wretch that put that trash on my coat,” said Plaisted, as he flung the mass into the grate.  “By George!  I’d fix him.”

“I’d give a lot to see him myself,” said Dexie, exultingly, from the other side of the table; “and he should have at least a quarter for that piece of work, though I’m sure it was worth a whole dollar to see you strutting up the street with signals of distress waving in the breeze behind you.  Ha, ha!”

“I believe you did it yourself before I went out,” he said, white with rage.

“Oh!  I do wish I had!  How I do wish I had thought of it!  How proud I should feel if I had been the one to give the citizens of Halifax such a grand idea of what the lost species are like; and how generous of you, too, to give a free exhibition of yourself, in your proper form, when you might have gone to the dime museum and earned a fortune!”