“Without brushing your hair, sir?”
“Brush a birch broom! My head never wants brushing. You know that.”
He gave himself a jerk, and the short, crisp, wavy grey locks glistened in the bright morning sun, which streamed in through the window.
“Look here; you can cut it to-morrow when you come—if I’m not dead. If I am, you may have a bit to keep in remembrance.”
“Oh, not so bad as that, sir, I hope. Dr Thorpe is too—”
“That’ll do,” said the man in the bed sharply. “I kept to you because you didn’t chatter like the ordinary barber brood. I may get better, so don’t spoil your character. Be off!”
The barber smiled, bowed, and left the room to doctor and patient.
“Well?” said the latter, meeting his attendant’s searching eye. “I’m not gone.”
“No; and I do not mean to let you go if I can help it.”
“Ho!—But perhaps you can’t.”