" Mr. Simpson smiled
faintly. "Only on Wednesday the barmaid here was asking after you,"
pursued Mr. Mills. Mr. Simpson smiled again. "She says to me, 'Where's
Gran'pa?' she says, and when I says, haughty like, 'Who do you mean?'
she says, 'Father Christmas!' If you was to tell her that you are only
fifty-three, she'd laugh in your face."
"Let her laugh," said the other, sourly.
"Come out and get it off," said Mr. Mills, earnestly. "There's a
barber's in Bird Street; you could go in the little back room, where he
charges a penny more, and get it done without anybody being a bit the
wiser."
He put his hand on Mr. Simpson's shoulder, and that gentleman, with a
glare in the direction of the fair but unconscious offender, rose in a
hypnotized fashion and followed him out. Twice on the way to Bird
Street Mr. Simpson paused and said he had altered his mind, and twice
did the propulsion of Mr. Mills's right hand, and his flattering
argument, make him alter it again.
It was a matter of relief to Mr. Simpson that the barber took his
instructions without any show of surprise. It appeared, indeed, that an
elderly man of seventy-eight had enlisted his services for a similar
purpose not two months before, and had got married six weeks afterwards.
Age of the bride given as twenty-four, but said to have looked older.
A snip of the scissors, and six inches of white beard fell to the floor.
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