Huxley Rustem settled himself patiently upon the hairdresser’s waiting bench to probe the speculation that jumped grasshopper-like into the field of his inquisitorial mind: ’Why does a man become a barber? Well, what is it that persuades a man, not by the mere compulsion of destiny, but by the sweet reasonableness of inclination, to dedicate his activities to the excision of other people’s pimples and the discomfiture of their hairy growths? He had glanced through the two papers, Punch and John Bull, handed him by the boy in buttons, and now, awaiting his turn, posed himself with this inquiry. There was a girl at it, too, at the end of the saloon. She seemed to have picked him out from the crowd of men there; he caught her staring, an attractive girl. It seemed insoluble; misfortunate people may, indeed must, by the pressure of circumstances, become sewermen, butchers, scavengers, and even clergymen, but the impulse to barbery was, he felt, quite indelicately ironic. How that girl stared at him—if she was not very careful she would be clipping the fellow’s ear—did she think she knew him? He rather hoped she would have to attend to him; would he be lucky enough? Huxley tried to estimate the chances by observing the half-dozen toilets in progress, but his calculations did not encourage the hope at all. It was very charming for an agreeable woman, a stranger, too, to do that kind of service for you. He remembered that, after his marriage237 five years ago, he had tried to persuade his wife to lather and shave him, “just for a lark, you know,” but she was adamant, didn’t see the joke at all! Well, well, he decided that the word barber derived in some ironic way from the words barbarism or barbarity, expressing, unconsciously perhaps, contempt on the part of the barber for a world that could only offer him this imposture for a man’s sacred will to order and activity. Yet it didn’t seem so bad for women—that splendid young creature there at the end of the saloon! The boy in buttons approached, and Huxley Rustem was ushered to that vacant chair at the end; the splendid young thing had placed a wrapper about him—she had almost “cuddled” it round his neck—and stood demurely preparing to do execution upon his poll, turning her eyes mischievously upon his bright-hued socks, which, by a notable coincidence, were the same colour as her own handsome hose. Huxley had a feeling that she had cunningly arranged the succession of turns in order to secure him to her chair—which shows that he was still young and very impressionable. Such a feeling is one of the customary assumptions of vanity, the natural and prized, but much-denied, possession of all agreeable people. Huxley, as the girl had already noted, and now saw more vividly in the mirror fronting them, was agreeable, was attractive. (My dear reader, both you and Huxley Rustem are right, the dainty barbaress had laid her nets for this particular victim.)  
“How would you like it cut, sir?” she asked, placing a hand upon each of his shoulders, and peering round at him with enamouring eyes.
 
238
 
“Oh, with a pair of scissors, don’t you think?” he replied at a venture, for he was not often waggish. But it was a very successful sally, the girl chuckled with rapture, loose fringes of her hair tickled his cheek, and he caught puffs of her sweet-scented breath. She was gold-haired, not very tall, and had pleasant turns about her neck and face and wrists that almost fascinated him. When they had agreed upon the range and extent of his shearing, the girl proceeded to the accomplishment of the task in complete silence, almost with gravity. Huxley began wondering how many hundreds and thousands of crops were squeezed annually by the delicious fingers, how many polls denuded by those competent shears. Very sad. Once a year, he supposed, she would go holidaying for a week or ten days; she would go to Bournemouth for the bathing or for whatever purpose it is people go to Bournemouth, Barmouth, or Blackpool. He determined to come in again the day after to-morrow and be shaved by her.
 
At the conclusion of the rite she brushed his coat collar very meticulously, tiptoeing a little, and remarked in a bright manner upon the weather, which was also bright. Then she went back to shave what Huxley described to himself as a “red-faced old cockalorum,” whom he at once disliked very thoroughly. She had given him a check with a fee marked upon it; he took this down the stairs and paid his dues to “a bald-headed old god-like monster”—Huxley felt sure he was—who sat in the shop below, surrounded by fringe-nets, stuffings, moustache wax, creams, toothbrushes, and sponges.
 
239
 
Two days later Huxley Rustem repeated his visit, but not all the intrigue of the girl nor his own man?uvring cou............