was dumbfounded and stood aghast, at the mighty change that came
over my pardner's linement.

He towered up in grandeur and in wrath before me. He seemed
almost like a offended male fowl when ravenin' hawks are angerin'
of it beyond its strength to endure. I don't like that metafor;
I don't love to compare my pardner to any fowl, wild or tame; but
my frenzied haste to describe the fearful seen must be my excuse,
and also my agitation in recallin' of it.

He towered up, he fluttered so to speak majestically, and he says
in loud wild axents that must have struck terror to the soul of
that mariner, "Where is the hair-comb?"

And then he shook his fist in the face of that mariner, and cries
out once agin, "Where is them long golden tresses? Bring 'em on
this instant! Fetch on that hair-comb, in a minute's time, or
I'll prosecute you, and sue you, and take the law to you - !"

The mariner quailed before him and sez I, "My dear pardner, be
calm! Be calm!"

"I won't be calm!"

Sez I mildly, but firmly, "You must, Josiah Allen; you must! or
you will break open your own chest. You must be calm."

"And I tell you I won't be calm. And I tell you," says he, a
turnin' to that destracted mariner agin "I tell you to bring on
that comb and that long hair, this instant. Do you s'pose I'm