“Your tact exceeds your truthfulness,” Bird cackled, then swerved into the doorway of Shaffer’s, the tailors, where Colonel Faulconer’s three identical bespoke uniforms were indeed ready as promised, as was the much cheaper outfit that Faulconer had ordered for Starbuck. Pecker Bird insisted on examining the Colonel’s uniform, then ordered one exactly like it for himself, except, he allowed, his coat’s collar should only have a major’s single star and not the three gold stars that decorated the Colonel’s collar wings. “Put the uniform upon my brother-in-law’s account,” Bird said grandly as two tailors measured his awkward, bony frame. He insisted upon every possible accoutrement for the uniform, every tassel and plume and braided decoration imaginable. “I shall go into battle gaudy,” Bird said, then turned as the spring-mounted bell on the shop’s door rang to announce the entrance of a new customer. “Delaney!” Bird delightedly greeted a short, portly man who, with an owlish face, peered about myopically to discover the source of the enthusiastic greeting.

“Bird? Is that you? They have uncaged you? Bird! It is you!” The two men, one so lanky and unkempt, the other so smooth and round and neat, greeted each other with unfeigned delight. It was immediately clear that though they had not met for many months, they were resuming a conversation full of rich insults aimed at their mutual acquaintances, the best of whom were dismissed as mere nincompoops while the worst were utter fools. Starbuck, forgotten, stood fingering the parcels containing the Colonel’s three uniforms until Thaddeus Bird, suddenly remembering him, beckoned him forward.

“You must meet Belvedere Delaney, Starbuck. Mister Delaney is Ethan’s half-brother, but you should not allow that unhappy circumstance to prejudice your judgment.”

“Starbuck,” Delaney said, offering a half bow. He was at least twelve inches shorter than the tall Starbuck and a good deal more elegant. Delaney’s black coat, breeches and top hat were of silk, his top boots gleamed, while his puff-bosomed shirt was a dazzling white and his tie pinned with a gold-mounted pearl. He had a round myopic face that was sly and humorous. “You are thinking,” he accused Starbuck, “that I do not resemble dear Ethan. You were wondering, were you not, how a swan and a buzzard could be hatched from the same egg?”

“I was wondering no such thing, sir,” Starbuck lied.

“Call me Delaney. We must be friends. Ethan tells me you were at Yale?”

Starbuck wondered what else Ethan had divulged. “I was at the seminary, yes.”