He saw from this that I could still speak. So he laid another thick wet towel over my face before he spoke again.
"What did you think of the game," he asked.
But he had miscalculated. I could still make a faint sound through the wet towels. He laid three or four more very thick ones over my face and stood with his five finger tips pressed against my face for support. A thick steam rose about me. Through it I could hear the barber's voice and the flick-flack of the razor as he stropped it.
"Yes, sir," he went on in his quiet professional tone, punctuated with the noise of the razor, "I knowed from the start them boys was sure to win,"—flick-flack-flick-flack,—"as soon as I seen the ice that night and seen the get-away them boys made I knowed it,"—flick-flack,—"and just as soon as Jimmy got aholt of the puck——"
This was more than the barber at the next chair could stand.
"Him get de puck," he cried, giving an angry dash with a full brush of soap into the face of the man under him,—"him get ut-dat stiff—why, boys," he said, and he turned appealingly to the eight barbers, who all rested their elbows on the customers' faces while they listened to the rising altercation; even the manicure girl, thrilled to attention, clasped tight the lumpy hand of her client in her white digits and remained motionless,—"why boys, dat feller can't no more play hockey than——"
"See here," said the barber, suddenly and angrily, striking his fist emphatically on the towels that covered my face. "I'll bet you five dollars to one Jimmy can skate rings round any two men in the league."
"Him skate," sneered the other squirting a jet of blinding steam in the face of the client he was treating, "he ain't got no more go in him than dat rag,"—and he slapped a wet towel across his client's face.
All the barbers were excited now. There was a babel of talk from behind each of the eight chairs. "He can't skate;" "He can skate;" "I'll bet you ten."
Already they were losing their tempers, slapping their customers with wet towels and jabbing great brushfuls of soap into their mouths. My barber was leaning over my face with his whole body. In another minute one or the other of them would have been sufficiently provoked to have dealt his customer a blow behind the ear.