Short Fiction · Chapter
Paderewski's Hair explained
Colonel Warburton Pollock recounts two tall tales: how Paderewski got his famous hair after being scalped by Nat Goodwin and John L.
What happens
Colonel Warburton Pollock recounts two tall tales: how Paderewski got his famous hair after being scalped by Nat Goodwin and John L. Sullivan in Africa, and a dangerous encounter with Australian sheep ranchers enraged by a magician's rabbit tricks.
Themes in this chapter
Humor and Irony
The entire chapter is a humorous tall tale, with absurd events like scalping for boxing gloves and a lion skin hair transplant.
Deception and Appearance vs. Reality
Paderewski's iconic hair is revealed to be a lion's mane, and the stories are likely fabricated for entertainment.
Characters to notice
- Unknown Narrator
The Post Man who meets Colonel Pollock and relays his stories.
- The Colonel
Colonel Warburton Pollock, the raconteur who tells the tales of Paderewski's hair and the Australian adventure.
Key passages
“Paderewski gave a yell of pain and dismay, and clasped his hands to his bald head in horror. 'I am ruined,' he said. 'My professional career is at an end.'”
Paderewski screamed in horror at his baldness, believing his career was over.
Paderewski's dramatic reaction to losing his hair.
“I never hear him bang down hard on the bass keys of a piano, but I think of a lion roaring in a South African forest, and I'll bet he does, too.”
Whenever Paderewski plays a loud bass note, Pollock imagines a lion's roar, and suspects Paderewski does too.
Pollock's whimsical connection between Paderewski's music and his lion-hair origin.