“Cut!—by a safety razor, by God! Sure, men swear by it. Can't blame 'em. Cut! By a safety!”
“But wait a second,” Saxon pleaded. “They have to be regulated. The clerk told me. See those little screws. There.... That's it... turn them around.”
Again Billy applied the blade to his face. After a couple of scrapes, he looked at himself closely in the mirror, grinned, and went on shaving. With swiftness and dexterity he scraped his face clean of lather. Saxon clapped her hands.
“Fine,” Billy approved. “Great! Here. Give me your hand. See what a good job it made.”
He started to rub her hand against his cheek. Saxon jerked away with a little cry of disappointment, then examined him closely.
“It hasn't shaved at all,” she said.
“It's a fake, that's what it is. It cuts the hide, but not the hair. Me for the barber.”
But Saxon was persistent.
“You haven't given it a fair trial yet. It was regulated too much. Let me try my hand at it. There, that's it, betwixt and between. Now, lather again and try it.”
This time the unmistakable sand-papery sound of hair-severing could be heard.