rushed across to him and then hurried out by
the archway.

The tailor was assisting Graham into a dark purple combination garment,
stockings, vest, and pants in one, as the thickset man came back from
the corner to meet the man with the flaxen beard returning from the
balcony. They began speaking quickly in an undertone, their bearing had
an unmistakable quality of anxiety. Over the purple under-garment came a
I complex but graceful garment of bluish white, and I Graham was clothed
in the fashion once more and saw himself, sallow-faced, unshaven and
shaggy still, but at least naked no longer, and in some indefinable
unprecedented way graceful.

"I must shave," he said regarding himself in the glass.

"In a moment," said Howard.

The persistent stare ceased. The young man closed his eyes, reopened
them, and with a lean hand extended, advanced on Graham. Then he
stopped, with his hand slowly gesticulating, and looked about him.

"A seat," said Howard impatiently, and in a moment the flaxen-bearded
man had a chair behind Graham. "Sit down, please," said Howard.

Graham hesitated, and in the other hand of the wildeyed man he saw the
glint of steel.

"Don't you understand, Sire?" cried the flaxen-bearded man with hurried
politeness. "He is going to cut your hair."

"Oh!" cried Graham enlightened. "But you called him--

"A capillotomist--precisely! He is one of the finest artists in the
world."

Graham sat down abruptly. The flaxen-bearded man disappeared. The
capillotomist came forward with graceful gestures, examined Graham's
ears and surveyed him, felt the back of his head, and would have sat
down again to regard him but for Howard's audible impatience. Forthwith
with rapid movements and a succession of deftly handled implements he
shaved Graham's chin, clipped his moustache, and cut and arranged his
hair. All this he did without a word, with something of the rapt air of
a poet inspired. And as soon as he had finished Graham was handed a pair
of shoes.

Suddenly a loud voice shouted--it seemed from a piece of machinery in
the corner--"At once--at once. The people know all over the city. Work
is being stopped. Work is being stopped. Wait for nothing, but come."

This shout appeared to perturb Howard exceedingly. By his gestures it
seemed to Graham that he hesitated between two directions. Abruptly
he went towards the corner where the apparatus stood about the little
crystal ball. As he did so the undertone of