“Not too short, please,” she answers. “Just a trim.”
Set to work with a flourish. The barber on the end winks at you, but pretend not to see it. All is quiet for a few minutes except for the snipping of the scissors, and then the coon who belongs to the bootblacking establishment shuffles through the door and puts a record on the Victrola in the corner.
Hum the tune and step lively as you reach for the clippers. Catch the customer’s eye in the mirror and smile. She responds slightly.
“It may be old,” say jovially, “but it’s still good.”
“I always did like it,” she admits.
Bend over and snip critically at a tuft of hair just behind her ear.
“What I say is,” murmur confidingly, “I’d rather have a good old tune if it’s really good than a lot of new junk. It’s funny about songs. I play the clarinet myself. Sometimes you’ll have a lot of swell ones and then a year’ll go by and you won’t have anything worth playing.”
“Yes, that’s true,” says the lady.
“Weren’t you in here about a month back?” Pause with upraised scissors to regard your work in the mirror.
“No,” she says, “I’m new in town. I was through here once when I was a baby, that’s all.”