Here having informed Puddock that Nutter was driving at the one point the whole evening, as any one that knew the secret would have seen; and having solemnly imposed the seal of secrecy upon his second, and essayed a wild and broken discourse upon the difference between total baldness and partial loss of hair, he disclosed to him the grand mystery of his existence, by lifting from the summit of his head a circular piece of wig, which in those days they called I believe, a 'topping,' leaving a bare shining disc exposed, about the size of a large pat of butter.
'Upon my life, Thir, it'th a very fine piethe of work,' says Puddock, who viewed the wiglet with the eye of a stage-property man, and held it by a top lock near the candle.

'The very finetht piethe of work of the kind I ever thaw.

'Tith thertainly French.

Oh, yeth--we can't do such thingth here.

By Jove, Thir, what a wig that man would make for Cato!' 'An' he must be a mane crature--I say, a mane crature,' pursued O'Flaherty, 'for there was not a soul in the town but Jerome, the--the treacherous ape, that knew it.