At the first opportunity the twins slipped away to their room, and locking the door securely, waited in awful anticipation for Tompkins’s knock. It did not come. The next day they ventured cautiously forth, and sought the protection of numbers when there was danger that the injured senior might suddenly appear from around a corner and wreak vengeance. But Tompkins, when he passed them, nodded pleasantly as if nothing had happened. On the third day he even dropped in after his old manner for a brief and friendly call. On the fourth he appeared with a comic paper in which he wished to show an amusing caricature, and spread it out on the desk. It was then that Nemesis came—swift, unexpected, terrible. As Duncan leaned guilelessly over the table, feasting his eyes on the cartoon, he felt the hair on the back of his head suddenly brushed up as by the hand of the barber testing its thickness. At the same time he heard a noise as of the sop of a sponge, and felt the chill of a cold liquid wetting his head and streaming down his neck.
“There!” said Tompkins, backing away and holding out a crimson sponge like a shield before him. “There’s a red that can’t be changed like a necktie. It’s good dye, this is, warranted to stand washing and not to wear off. I think I shall know you, my friend, the next time I see you.”
With these words the senior escaped, leaving the unhappy Duncan to make his toilet as best he could. There was much bathing that day in the twins’ abode, and shampooing that in point of thoroughness would have put to shame the efforts of an expert. The results were not encouraging. The crimson became but a shade lighter; while the scalp, scraped and worn by the process, showed vivid pink beneath. When it became apparent that home treatment would not avail to remove the glaring stain, they adjourned to the drug store, where they pleaded for advice and received only ridicule. A friendly barber finally came to their relief with the promise that by clipping off Duncan’s red locks and dying the stubble to match the rest, he could make him over as good as new. When the boy got down from the chair, however, he was horrified to find that though the gory hue had disappeared, the clipped portion was several shades darker than the color nature had intended it should bear, and of a different tone; and through the dark patch the skin still glistened a rosy pink.