Two of these old aristocrats--I am speaking of the old trees
now, not Muffles, and certainly not the stable-boy--two giant elms (the
same that Washington tied his mare to when they were little)--stand
guard on either side of the back porch, a wide veranda of a porch with a
honeysuckle, its stem, as thick as your arm, and its scraggy, half-dead
tendrils plaited in and out of the palings and newly painted
lattice-work.
On Sunday mornings--and this tale begins with a Sunday morning--Muffles
always shaved himself on this back porch. On these occasions he was
attired in a pair of trousers, a pair of slippers, and a red flannel
undershirt.
I am aware that this is not an extraordinary thing for a man living in
the country to do on a Sunday morning, and it is not an extraordinary
costume in which to do it. It was neither the costume nor the occupation
that made the operation notable, but the distinguished company who sat
around the operator while it went on.
There was the ex-sheriff--a large, bulbous man with a jet-black mustache
hung under his nose, a shirt-collar cut low enough to permit of his
breathing, and a skin-tight waistcoat buttoned over a rotundity that
rested on his knees.
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