The barber he went to work slow and careful. Every little while he would stand off and look at Mr. Atkins with his head on one side and whistle through his teeth. Then he would sort of rush in and snip off a chunk of hair and then stand off again and take another look. Mr. Atkins sat like he was frozen solid and looked at the barber hard and then looked in the glass, and then grunted down in his throat. It took the barber ’most an hour to git through, but when he was done you wouldn’t have known Mr. Atkins. He looked like he was ten years younger and a million dollars richer. Why, if a man with whiskers like his were fixed should stop you on the street and ask you to get him change for a million-dollar bill, you would be surprised that he was bothering with such small change. Mr. Atkins looked at himself and waggled his head; then he looked at himself some more, sideways, hideways, and wideways, and mumbled and looked discontented. “’Tain’t me,” says he. “Now, when I git up in the mornin’ and wash my face and look in the glass I’ll have to git interduced or I’ll think there’s a stranger a-hangin’ around. I got used to my face and I kind of liked it. Now I got to start in all over to git used to this one.” “It hain’t only your face that’s changed,” says Catty. “It’s all of you. You’re respectable now. How does it feel?” “Can’t say as yet. Can’t say as yet.... Goodness gracious, Peter! Now, honest, Catty, is that me?” “It’s you, Dad.” “But that feller in the glass looks as if he _liked_ to work, and all that.” “He does,” says Catty. “Then, ’tain’t me. I knowed it.... I wisht I had back my whiskers.” Well, we went out of there and walked down the street, and all at once I noticed that folks were pointing at us and whispering. Everywhere you looked there was men reading the paper and talking about it. It was almost like the night before election. The town was stirred up, and when our town gets stirred it gets stirred clean to the bottom. That painting-race had hit us right between the eyes, and I could see that something was going to happen sure. Dad had told me I could eat with Catty and his Dad, which I did. We had fish cooked in the coals and water and bread and cheese. It was a mighty fine meal. After supper we sat around awhile helping Mr. Atkins get used to his whiskers, and then Catty says it was time to go to court. The court was in a room over the fire-engine hall, and when we got there there was a crowd. It looked like all the town had been arrested for something. There was women there, too, and one of them was Mrs. Gage, the justice’s wife. I figured she was to blame for trying to get Mr. Atkins chased out of town, and had come down to make sure her husband did it. We went in and sat down inside the railing, and pretty soon everybody else came in, and then Mr. Gage sat down in his chair behind the desk and cleared his throat and scowled at everybody as important as all-git-out.