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In The Red Sea Sharks, Captain Haddock is asked by Allan, “Do you sleep with your beard under or over the sheet?”

Are there any other drawings in the other books that show how he does actually sleep?

In "Castafiore Emerald" on the night that Castafiore herself screams the house down when she first arrives; and in "Picaros" when the manservant wakes him up and he is taken by armed escort to the tobacconist's.

I don't have them on me, so I cannot tell how he sleeps in those. However, the opening pages of "Alph-Art" indicate that he sleep with his sheets over his beard.

Thanks! I will look them up :)

Let us know if you've reached any conclusions.

In Picaros when Manolo wakes him up, it looks to me like he might be sleeping on his front. Because of this, I think he sleeps with his beard neither over the sheet nor under it.

From the books, it looks like the majority of the time he sleeps with it under the sheets, but sometimes you can't tell :)

I've looked up those scenes from Castafiore and Picaros that mct helpfully recalled and I'd say that in both cases he's definitely sleeping with his beard under the sheets.

Thanks for the help!

I was amused when he was trying to see if he slept with his beard under or over the bed sheet. I laughed so hard I fell off my chair! I loved the part when Abdulah came over to Marlinspike and pulled pranks on Captain Haddock.

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Okay so recently I saw a scene from a 1940s movie with Cary Grant, "My Favourite Wife", in which his partner jokes about someone called Mulligan, and then wonders if Mulligan "sleeps with his beard over or under the covers".
It seems to be directly related to the name "Mulligan" - the first bit is a reference to a "Mulligan stew" but then the beard joke follows on, and is dependent on what comes before.
I don't get the joke. I'd always wondered about what the beard joke in Red Sea Sharks really meant…
I mean, to lie with the sheet under your beard you'd more or less have to lie completely still all night, unless it was outrageously long…
And this sort of suggests it has a slightly deeper meaning than just about tormenting Haddock…

Can anyone shed any light on this?

A “Mulligan stew” of course is a "stone soup" - a stew in which everyone contributes a little of what they have for everyone to share.

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