“ ‘You’ve come, have you?’ he asked. ‘Well, go upstairs; he’s in the front room to your right. There’s nobody with him. He hasn’t any friends or relatives in town; he’s only been boarding here about a week.’
“ ‘How long since he—since it occurred?’ I asked.
“ ‘About an hour, I guess,’ says the old man. I was glad of that because corpses always shave better before they get good and cold. I went in the room and turned up the lamp. The man was laid out on the bed. He was warm yet and he had about a week’s growth of beard on. I got to work and in half an hour I had given him a nice clean shave that would have done his heart good if he had been alive. Then I went downstairs and saw the old man.
“ ‘What success?’ he asked.
“ ‘Good,’ says I. ‘He’s fixed up all right. Who’s to pay?’
“ ‘He gave me $30 to send his folks in Alabama yesterday,’ says the old man. ‘I guess your fee will have to come out of it.’
“ ‘It’ll be five,’ I said.
“The old man handed me a five dollar bill and I went home very well satisfied.”
Here the barber seized the chair, hurled it upright, snatched off the cloth, buried his hands in the Post Man’s hair and tore out a handful, bumped and thumped his head, shook it violently and hissed sarcastically: “Bay rum?”
The Post Man nodded stupidly, closed his eyes and tried unsuccessfully to recall a prayer.