"Towels an' hot water, hell! This ain't no barber shop, an' there ain't no gin, or whatever they rub on your face after you get through, either. You just shave an' knock the soap off your ears an' that's all there is to it."
After much effort Endicott succeeded in smearing his face with a thin, stringy lather, and gingerly picked up the razor. The Texan looked on in owlish solemnity as the man sat holding the blade helplessly.
"What you doin', Win, sayin' the blessin'? Just whet her on your boot an' sail in."
"But where do I begin?"
The Texan snorted disgustedly. "Your face ain't so damn big but what an hour or two reminiscence ought to take you back to where it starts. Begin at your hat an' work down over your jaw 'til you come to your shirt, an' the same on the other side, takin' in your lip an' chin in transit, as the feller says. An' hold it like a razor, an' not like a pitchfork. Now you got to lather all over again, 'cause it's dry."
Once more Endicott laboriously coaxed a thin lather out of the brown hand-soap, and again he grasped the razor, this time with a do-or-die determination.
"Oughtn't I have a mirror?" he asked doubtfully.
"A mirror! Don't you know where your own face is at? You don't need no mirror to eat with, do you? Well, it's the same way with shavin'. But if you got to have ocular evidence, just hang out over the creek there where it's still."
The operation was slow and painful. It seemed to Endicott as though each separate hair were being dragged out by its roots, and more than once the razor edge drew blood. At last the job was finished, he bathed his smarting face in the cold water, and turned to the Texan for approval.
"You look like the second best bet in a two-handed cat fight," he opined, and producing his book of cigarette papers, proceeded to stick patches of tissue over various cuts and gashes. "Takin' it by an' large, though, it ain't so bad. There's about as many places where you didn't go close enough as there is where you went too close, so's it'll average somewhere around the skin level. Anyway it shows you tried to look respectable—an' you do, from your neck down—an' your hat, too."