“How great thought travels!” he said ecstatically--“how thought begets thought!... Now that was precisely what flashed into my thinking machinery. What? Scissors? Oh, ah, yes--materialistic Emma always carries scissors. But the executioner! who is worthy to clip the godlike locks?” Rippley stole over to Emma and took the scissors. Lovegood smiled: “Ah, yes, Rippley! Thy subtle fingers, creating such blood-curdling insignificances in clay, shall at last be used to noble ends--at last be put to their originally designed calling of barber.” Rippley was snipping off the hair with unskilful gashes, the severed locks falling softly upon the floor. “Thou, Rippley, shalt make minor poetry illustrious--thou shalt breathe notoriety into the nostrils of Aubrey’s verse--thou shalt give him through a success of scandal what his rhymes can never bring him--a grip on the skirts of Fame. Since Fame his verse can never bring him, he shall flirt with her through Infamy.” Rippley held up a lock: “Anyone else have some?” he asked. Lovegood chuckled ironically: “But shear the glory from him tenderly, deftly,” said he. “You’re not cutting a hedge. Set aside each lock that falls, that the hero-worshipper may wear a snippet from a poet’s brow.... All the dear delightful barmaids will want a lock. Peckham tea-parties will thrill at the touch of it--Clapham culture sob--West Kensington be troubled. And in the town I can hear all the little coffee-girls a-weeping.... Pan is not dead. The news is worse than that--Pan is growing bald and middle-aged.... Poets should be heard, not seen.” Rippley dropped the scissors and whipped into a seat, uttering a smothered guffaw, as Aubrey roused and yawned. Lovegood sat down: “Silence,” said he--“the sleeping beauty wakes.” The poet opened his eyes drowsily, and rose slowly, sleepily, from the sofa, amidst a tense silence. As he stood up, his hair raggedly clipped about his head, making his long neck inordinately naked, a titter ran round the guests. He shivered: “I dreamed,” he said; and ran his hand over his hair. “I dreamed----” He ran his hand over his hair again. Emma Hartroff got up from her seat and, thrusting her hands into her pockets, she straddled before him, gazing at him. His eyes were staring blankly into space. She tittered: “Well, I’m blowed!” said she--“Modern Poetry seems to be all rhymes and neckties.” The poet burst into tears. * * * * * For a month the boy Noll lay seriously ill; but at last his young body began to gain vigour, and strength slowly to come back to him. CHAPTER IX _Wherein Master Oliver is convinced that it is Difficult to play the Man’s Part on a Weak Stomach_ In a large attic the glow of a stove, that roared of warmth, gave a sense of comfort to the spacious, rambling, rather bare room; and from its opened iron door the ruddy light of its furnace flared cheerily upon the floor.