VIII
HAIR THAT IS SCENERY
MR. WIGGER, Mrs. Wigger's husband (the writer boards with Mrs. Wigger), is an iceman. It is not his business, however, with which this study is concerned; it is with his hair. Perhaps it is a great assumption of talent to attempt to describe Mr. Wigger's hair. Oh, Muse! as John Milton says, lend a hand here! Mr. Wigger's abundant hair, first, is a deep, lusterful black, and extremely curly. From his ears straight upward to the crown of his head (from the three-quarters view of him studied here only one full ear is visible, and just barely the tip of the other one) an oblong block of close curls is attached to the side of his head, like a pannier. Leftward from this, to a point directly over the beginning of his eyebrow, a broad, bare strip extends up to a black, undulating band of hair which marks the top of his head. Thence leftward to the part in the middle of his head is a plot of hair like a little black lawn, extending well down to his forehead and neatly rounded at the corner away from the part. Now, from the part onward the hair in a great mass sweeps upward in a towering concave wave, the high ridge of which, though it folds ever slightly inward, culminates at the top in a sharp, soaring point. Over the far temple the hair falls from the great waves in little swirling wavelets. Mr. Wigger's mustache, a great, glossy, oily, inky black, against a sallow background, with tall upward ends, is a worthy companion to his hair. His neck, to continue the portrait, takes a long dive into his collar, which is very much too big, with the fullness protruding in front. His shoulders are steeply sloping, and his waistcoat is cut extremely low, like one for full dress, his shirt front bulging when, as for this portrait, he is seated. In this man romance lives on. A prosaic age has not marred him. You can readily see how a woman would become infatuated with such a one. He is a man not tonsorially decadent.
IX
A NICE MAN
THE clerk of the store (dry goods and gentlemen's furnishings) is what is known as a nice man. He is known as such among his neighbors. He is known as such by his customers. People, wives sometimes to their husbands, refer to him as a nice man. Motherly old ladies say, "He is such a nice man!" Younger ladies exclaim, "What a nice man!" You cannot look at him and fail to know that he is a nice man. You cannot look at him and fail to know that his life has been blameless. He is very clean, tidy, and very, fresh-faced. His cheeks are round and rosy; his eyes are bright; his mustache is silken. He is in perfect health; his expression is pleasant; his disposition agreeable; and his manners are perfect. His name is Will (certainly).
The nice man has a little wife, who is almost as nice as he. She is interested in Sunday schools. The nice man and his wife have a little baby that looks just like its father. On Sundays they walk in the park, pushing the baby-cab before them. On great days of celebration they go together into the country, on picnics; and return home at night tired out. On these trips to the country the little wife brings home chestnut burrs to hang from the chandelier in the parlor. She made some pussy-willow buds to look like little cats on a stick. These are on the mantel. When Will got the job he now has his wife turned to the store's advertisement the first thing in the newspaper every evening to read it. She had always known that Will had it in him to be something, and so she had always told him. When the nice men gets a raise in salary he and his wife will put away so much a week and soon have a home of their own somewhere in the suburbs. Already, the baby has a savings-bank account of its own, and by the time it has developed into the grown image of the nice man, its father, it will have a sum of money.