of; but while I was taking my siesta somebody came and took my wig away. Sambo and Julius Caesar and Ariadne have been hunting high and low and on every side without success, and what is extraordinary my dressing-gown disappeared at the same time. However, I hope that you will excuse me, for I thought it better to appear as I am than not at all; for, I confess it, I have but two wigs, and my other one has been left at the barber's to be refrizzled." Some dreadful suspicions came over Paddy's mind when he heard this, and his fears were not allayed when he heard a loud chattering, and presently Queerface, with Polly and Nelly, appeared at the open window, the former with the missing wig on his head and the dressing-gown over his shoulders. In he popped, nothing daunted, and seeing an empty chair--the intended occupant had died of the coast fever that morning-- he squatted himself down in it, and began bowing and grinning away round to all the company. Paddy began to scold him, but Queerface merely lifted a glass which stood near him and nodded his head at him in the most cool and impudent way, as much as to say, "We understand each other perfectly--we are both men of the world." Then he turned to the master of the house, and steadfastly looking at his white night-cap, adjusted the wig he had stolen in the most comical manner. Everybody present all the time was roaring with laughter, in which no one joined more heartily than did the master of the house. "Come, come, Master Queerface, I want back my wig," he exclaimed, at last; "my wig, old fellow--my wig--ha--ha--ha!" But not a bit of it. Queerface was evidently too much delighted with the ornament on his pate to think of abandoning it, and the more vehement were the signs Mr Wilkie made the tighter did he haul it down over his ears. As he sat up in a big chair, with the coloured dressing-gown over his shoulders, and the wig hanging down on each side of his head, Paddy declared that he looked exactly like a judge on the bench. "Will you or will you not give me up my wig?" at length exclaimed the owner of it--but Queerface held it tighter than ever. "Take that, then!" cried Mr Wilkie, recollecting a well-known story of his youth, and seizing his white night-cap he flung it at Queerface. The monkey was not slow to imitate the example, but whipping off the wig, he threw it at the owner with one hand while he caught the white cap with the other, and soon his ugly mug was grinning with delight from under it. Mr Wilkie, having delivered over his wig to one of his negro servants to be brushed and cleansed, begged his guests and family to begin dinner. Adair and his brother midshipmen apologised for the behaviour of their companion, but he assured them that he would not have missed the fun on any account, and that his wig was not a bit the worse for having been worn by the monkey.