Mrs. Wibird and Melissa had a hard time of it for the next few days. No part of Wilson's bodily frame had been hurt, except his nose, which had encountered something hard and was swollen to the size and shape of a potato; but his feelings in general and his pride in particular had suffered grievous injury. After one glance in the mirror, the morning after the party, he fled back to his bed, and remained there for some hours; but his room was cold, and by afternoon he was downstairs in the sitting-room, with his back to the light, and his feet on the baseburner stove. No one was to be let in, he informed his mother peremptorily. He wouldn't be seen by any one, a sight like this. Mrs. Wibird, suggesting a flaxseed poultice, was waved away angrily. All he asked, he announced, was to be left alone. This meant that his mother must sit either in the kitchen or in a cold bedroom: she chose the former alternative, and repaired thither meekly with her sewing, leaving her son to nurse his injuries in solitude. His nose! if it had been anything else! A gash on the brow, or a cut on the cheek, which might look, when healed, like a Scar of Battle: either of them might have been displayed with equanimity, even with pride; might be accounted for in a dozen ways. But a swollen and crimson nose! Wilson groaned and clenched his teeth. He was proud of his nose, which was of the beak variety: he called it his commanding feature. He often, in fancy, read descriptions of his appearance in the leading journals of the country. "A glance at this eminent man shows a commanding nose and an indomitable chin." All great men had large noses; his nose was large; the conclusion was not far to seek. As a matter of fact, Wilson Wibird was a degenerate shoot from a stock once good. In Colonial days the Wibirds had been prominent among public-spirited citizens; had fought at Bunker Hill, valiantly enough; had held responsible positions, and been commemorated in sounding epitaphs. Little by little the race had dwindled, peaked and pined to its present state. Wilson's father had been postmaster, a meek, sandy little man whom everybody liked and was sorry for, because he had no "faculty." In the son, Nature had played one of her freaks, endowing him with the ambitions (and the features, if you will! it certainly was a good big nose, and his chin was, as Mr. Mallow said, as stubborn as a mule's jaw!) of a Tamburlane, and the abilities of a grocer's clerk in a very small way. The ability of a hotel clerk he did not possess, in Mr. Mallow's opinion.