‘A fine train,’ said he, ‘a very fine train. There’s nothing slower anywhere.’ The hairdresser wrapped a towel round his head, and began drying it. ‘And what will you have on, sir?’ he asked. The old gentleman considered a little. ‘I think a map of south-west London would be best,’ he said. ‘I’m going up there next week, and I don’t know my way about. It would be very tiresome to get lost. But if you give me a nice map of south-west London, with 25 Brompton Square marked in red, why, all I shall have to do, if I get lost, is to ring the nearest bell of the nearest house, and ask for a couple of looking-glasses.’ ‘What for?’ asked David. ‘Why, I shall sit in front of one, and reflect the top of my head in the other. Then I shall see where I am, and where I want to go to. Send the geographer and the painter at once.’ This old gentleman got so interested in his map that he did not talk to David any more, and so he strolled on to the next one, who, so he learned, was going to Egypt, and was having a spider’s web painted on his head to keep the flies off. He, too, seemed to know David, which made it very pleasant. ‘And so you’ve come by the 11.29,’ he said. ‘A dangerous trip, because you go so slow that it’s almost impossible to stop in case of an accident. I leave for Egypt by the same train. I wonder if it would be wiser to have some fly papers as well. Or a picture of a mummy or two, to give me local colour.’ ‘Whatever you please, sir,’ said the hairdresser. ‘Well, we can’t go wrong with a mummy. I think a mummy and a spider’s web, and leave out the fly-papers.’ The next old gentleman was having his own face painted in oils on the back of his head, and he put his finger on his lip, and beckoned with the other hand to David. ‘Is it like me?’ he whispered. ‘Give me your candid opinion. Don’t mind the artist.’ He nodded his head up and down, so that David should see his real face and his painted face. ‘Very like indeed,’ said David. ‘But what’s it for?’ He assumed an air of great secrecy. ‘You mustn’t tell anybody,’ he said. ‘Do you promise?’ ‘Yes,’ said David. ‘Well, if I have my own face at the back of my head, it will be such a puzzle. People in the street will see me looking at them, as if I was coming towards them, and all the time I shall be going away. What do you think of that?’ ‘It’s—it’s certainly very puzzling,’ said David. ‘Isn’t it? And then when I’m tired of going that way, I shall begin to walk backwards, and all the people the other side of me will think the same thing. In quite a short time nobody will know where I am. I shall always be going away when they think I’m coming, and when they think I’m coming I shall always be going away!’ ‘But that’s the same thing, isn’t it?’ asked David. He took no notice of this, and called out to the painter, who had R.A. embroidered on his collar.