e old school saying.

"Don't you know all the real Zouaves have their hair cut as short as
anything? and just look at mine!" and Freddy tossed back his silky,
golden curls in high disgust.

"Fellows, _it must be done_! We must have that hair off, short order!"
continued the Colonel, solemnly.

"Well," exclaimed George Chadwick, who was the oldest of the party, and
would certainly have been Colonel if Freddy had not been prime favorite
with everybody, "Don't you see how we can manage that?"

"Why, how?" was the general question.

"Just you wait a moment," replied the inventor, and he put for the house
in double quick time, whence he presently returned with an immense pair
of scissors, which he had borrowed of the cook.

"Now, then, who'll be scissorized first?"

"I! I! I!" cried a chorus of voices.

"Can't do every one at once; come, Freddy, you're the
commander-in-chief, suppose you set the example."

"Here goes, then!" exclaimed Freddy; and down he sat on the spring
board.

Snip! went the long scissors, and off came a beautiful curl. Snap! more
demolition on the other side, and in five minutes such a worn-out old
scrubbing brush as his head looked like, never was seen anywhere, even
on a Zouave; George, of course, running out his tongue so far at
every snip of the scissors, that it was a mercy it didn't get cut off,
too.

[Illustration: "FIRE AWAY OLD CHAP!"]

"Jolly! what a fright you look!" shouted Peter. "I say Freddy, I expect
you'll scare General Beauregard into the cholera the first time he sees
you. Now, then, it's my turn; fire away old chap!"

My conscience! what hair cutting that was! Some parts were scratched
nearly bald, while in others, little bunches of hair were left standing
up like stubble in an autumn cornfield. Their heads looked as if they
had been gnawed by the mice or dug up in spots by the roots; and I am
sure their own mammas would scarcely have known them again.

"Come, number three's turn now!" exclaimed George, flourishing his
scissors.

"No, I don't know about that," put in Tom Pringle, who was the most
thoughtful of the party, "I guess I'd rather see what my mother thinks
before I have _my_ hair cut off."

This speech caused the rest of the regiment to think of something which
hadn't struck them before, namely what _their_ mothers would say on the
subject of Zouave hair dressing, and as George began to be a little
frightened by this time, at the fearful and astonishing