“What?—you?” he demanded indignantly.
“Yes; me. If any barber is good enough to shave your neck, and then I am, too.”
Billy moaned and groaned in the abjectness of humility and surrender, and let her have her way.
“There, and a good job,” she informed him when she had finished. “As easy as falling off a log. And besides, it means twenty-six dollars a year. And you'll buy the crib, the baby buggy, the pinning blankets, and lots and lots of things with it. Now sit still a minute longer.”
She rinsed and dried the back of his neck and dusted it with talcum powder.
“You're as sweet as a clean little baby, Billy Boy.”
The unexpected and lingering impact of her lips on the back of his neck made him writhe with mingled feelings not all unpleasant.
Two days later, though vowing in the intervening time to have nothing further to do with the instrument of the devil, he permitted Saxon to assist him to a second shave. This time it went easier.
“It ain't so bad,” he admitted. “I'm gettin' the hang of it. It's all in the regulating. You can shave as close as you want an' no more close than you want. Barbers can't do that. Every once an' awhile they get my face sore.”
The third shave was an unqualified success, and the culminating bliss was reached when Saxon presented him with a bottle of witch hazel. After that he began active proselyting. He could not wait a visit from Bert, but carried the paraphernalia to the latter's house to demonstrate.