UpdateThis version is competely wrong!! It is quick because it does nothing at all. I benchmarked this, but verified the output of a completely different, correct, but much slower piece of code.

A subtle variation on my last version acheives a worthwhile speedup. It's about 50% quicker than my previous best and over twice as fast as the original.

I wish there was a way to put a big red cross through the code as well.

## !!! DO NOT USE !!! TOTALLY BOGUS CODE. !!!
sub peel2 {
    my( $s, $n ) = @_;
    my($start, $stop, $p, $q) = (length $s, 0, 0);
    ($start, $stop) = ($p, $q)
        while $p =  1+index( $s, ')', $stop  ) < 0
          and $q =   rindex( $s, '(', $start ) < 0
          and $n--;
    substr $s, $start, $stop - $start;
}

                 Rate            his mine-less-lgnt           buk2    
+      buk3
his             569/s             --           -35%           -45%    
+      -62%
mine-less-lgnt  875/s            54%             --           -15%    
+      -42%
buk2           1026/s            80%            17%             --    
+      -32%
buk3           1502/s           164%            72%            46%    
+        --
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