The Absence of Mr. Glass

ess man with his clothes. This hat is of a stylish shape and systematically brushed and burnished, though not very new. An old dandy, I should think."

"But good heavens!" called out Miss MacNab, "aren't you going to untie the man first?"

"I say 'old' with intention, though not with certainty," continued the expositor; "my own reason for it might seem a little far-fetched. The hair of human beings falls out in very varying degrees, but almost always falls out slightly; and with this lens I should see the tiny hairs in a hat recently worn. It has none: which leads me to guess that Mr. Glass is bald. Now, when this is taken with the high-pitched and querulous voice which Miss MacNab described so vividly (patience, my dear lady, patience)--when we take the hairless head together with the tone common in senile anger, I should think we may deduce some advance in years. Nevertheless he was probably vigorous; and he was almost certainly tall. I might rely in some degree on the story of his previous appe