Already, Linda saw, this part of the operation was done. The girl wheeled into position a case that had a fan and ring of blue flickering flames, and a cupped tube through which hot air was poured over her mother's head. M. Joseph strutted in, a small carefully dressed man with a diminutive pointed gray beard and formal curled mustache. He spoke with what Linda supposed was a French accent, and his manners, at least to them, were beautiful. But because the girl had not put out the blue flames quickly enough he turned to her with a voice of quivering rage. It was so unexpected, in the middle of his bowing and smooth assurances, that Linda was startled, and had to think about him all over. The result of this was a surprising dislike; she hated, even, to see him touch her mother, as he unnecessarily did in directing them into the enclosure for the permanent wave. The place itself filled her with the faint horror of instruments and the unknown. Above the chair where Mrs. Condon now sat there was a circle in the ceiling like the base of a chandelier and hanging down from it on twisted green wires were a great number of the strangest things imaginable: they were as thick as her wrist, but round, longer and hollow, white china inside and covered with brown wrapping. The wires of each, she discovered, led over a little wheel and down again to a swinging clock-like weight. In addition to this there were strange depressing handles on the wall by a dial with a jiggling needle and clearly marked numbers. The skill of the girl who had washed her mother's hair, however, was slight compared with M. Joseph's dexterity. The comb flashed in his white narrow hands; in no time at all every knot was urged out into a shining smoothness. “Just the front?” he inquired. Not waiting for Mrs. Condon's reply, he detached a strand from the mass over her brow, impaled it on a hairpin, while he picked up what might have been a thick steel knitting-needle with one end fastened in the middle of a silver quarter. The latter, it developed, had a hole in it, through which he drew the strand of hair, and then wrapped it with an angry tightness about the long projection. At this exact moment a new girl, but tired and moist, appeared, took a hank of white threads from a dressing-table, and tied that separate lock firmly. This, Linda counted, was repeated fifteen times; and when it was accomplished she was unable to repress a nervous laughter. Really, her mother looked too queer for words: the long rigid projections stood out all over her head like--like a huge pincushion; no, it was a porcupine. Mrs. Condon smiled in uncertain recognition of her daughter's mirth.