With staring eyes and open mouths, they listened to Nettles, who gratified his audience with most alarming stories of the Skeleton Crew, so much so as to make many of them tremble in their shoes.
It was now Nettles “turn” to be shaved.
He sat in the chair, and a small boy placed a napkin under his chin.
Yet all the while he was laughing at the villagers about their childish hobgoblin notions regarding the Skeleton Crew.
They in turn began to laugh also, until the shop re-echoed with their boisterous merriment.
When the barber’s boy, lather-box and brush in hand, had half “soaped” Mr. Nettles, he gave a sudden shout of alarm and dropped his utensils on the floor.
His hair stood on end with fright, and he trembled violently in every limb.
And well he might.
He cried for help.
But the barber and his audience rushed out of the shop yelling like lunatics at the sight they saw, leaving Nettles and the boy alone.