"Bring the cotton!" now cried Mellasys Plickaman.

A bag of that regal product was brought.

"Roll him in it!" said Billy Sangaree.

"Let the Colonel work his own tricks," Major Licklickin said. "He's an
artist, he is."

I must admit that he was an artist. He fabricated me an elaborate wig of
the cotton. He arranged me a pair of bushy white eyebrows. He stuck
a venerable beard upon my chin, and a moustache upon my lip. Then he
proceeded to indicate my ribs with lines of cotton, and to cap my
shoulders with epaulets. It would be long to describe the fantastic
tricks he played with me amid the loud laughter of his crew.

Occasionally, also, I heard suppressed giggles from Saccharissa at the
window.

I have no doubt that I should have strangled my late _fiancée_, if such
an act had been consistent with my personal safety.

When I was completely cottoned, in the decorative manner I have
described, Mellasys took a banjo from an old negro, and, striking it,
not without a certain unsophisticated and barbaric grace appropriate to
the instrument, commanded me to dance.

I essayed to do so. But my heart was heavy; consequently my heels were
not light. My faint attempts at pirouettes were not satisfactory.