lden lot barber, in obedience to social
demands construed to be equally imperious with the physical, reduced all
subsequent counting, whether by fingertips or a glance of the eye, to
barest mechanical routine. A single half-dollar is easy to count. Still,
on the following morning there were two coins to count. True, both were
dimes.

A diligent search among the miscellany of the Crystal Palace Hotel had
failed to reveal a single razor. The razor used by the miner should in
all reason have been found, but there was neither that nor any other.
The baffled seeker believed there must have been crooked work somewhere.
Without hesitation he found either Jimmie or his companion to be guilty
of malfeasance in office. But at least one item of more or less worried
debate was eliminated. He need no longer weigh mere surface gentility
against the stern demands of an active metabolism. A shave cost a
quarter. Twenty cents would not buy a shave, but it would buy at the
cafeteria something more needful to any one but a fop.

He saw himself in the days to come--if there were very many days to
come, of which he was now not too certain--descending to the unwholesome
artistic level of the elder Montague. He would, in short, be compelled
to peddle the brush. And of course as yet it was nothing like a
brush--nothing to kindle the eye of a director needing genuine brushes.
In the early morning light he fingered a somewhat gaunt chin and
wondered how long "they" would require to grow. Not yet could he be
taken for one of those actors compelled by the rigorous exactions of
creative screen art to let Nature have its course with his beard. At
present he merely needed a shave.

And the collar had not improved with usage. Also, as the day wore on,
coffee with one egg proved to have been not long-enduring fare for
this private in the army of the unemployed. Still, his morale was but
slightly impaired. There were always ways, it seemed. And the later
hours of the hungry afternoon were rather pleasantly occupied in
dwelling upon one of them.

The sole guest of the Crystal Palace Hotel entered the hostelry that
night somewhat earlier than was usual; indeed at the very earliest
moment that foot traffic through the narrow street seemed to have
diminished to a point where the entry could be effected without
incurring the public notice which he at these moments so sincerely
shunned. After a brief interval inside the lobby he issued from
his window wi