The tears ceased to drip from Dolly's eyes. "You can't do that," she said, a maternal firmness coming into her voice. "Why, Goosie, what would they think of you down at the office?" "At the office? Why, they won't know it!" "But _you'll_ know it, Goosie. All the time, you'll know it. Goosie, you don't want to be different, do you? You want to be like other men, don't you? You don't want to be _different_?" This argument had some effect on Charles-Norton. He stood very still, scratching his head pensively. "Well," he said finally, "maybe you're right. Maybe we had better keep them cut short." "Oh, Goosie!" cried Dolly, joyously, and bounded from the room. She came running back with the scissors. "Come, quick!" she panted. "I'll cut them, short. 'Twon't be much trouble after all, will it? I'll cut them every day. It will be just like shaving--no more trouble than that!" And she slid the scissors along Charles-Norton's skin with a cold, decisive little zip. He could see her head, cocked a bit side-ways with concentration, reflected in the glass panes of the side-board as she cut and cut, closer and closer. Her rosy nostrils were distended slightly; upon her tight lip the tip of a small white tooth gleamed. A light shiver passed along Charles-Norton's spine. "Gee, I didn't think she could look like this," he thought. CHAPTER IV Following this little disturbance the Sims couple, lowering their heads, side by side, resolutely regained the smooth rut of their placid existence. Everything in this world is easier than is imagined. Much easier. In the case of the Sims' household, it was just a matter of adding each morning, to the daily shave of Charles-Norton, another operation quite as facile. "Dolly," he would call, as soon as his hot towel had removed from his ruddy cheeks the last bubbles of lather. And Dolly, her hungry little scissors agleam in her hand, trotted in alacriously. She sat Charles-Norton on the edge of the tub and bent over him her happy, humming head. Zip-zip-zip, went the scissors, zip-zip--and a soft white fluff that looked like the stuffing of a pillow (an A-one pillow; not the kind upon which Charles-Norton and Dolly laid their modest heads) eddied slowly to Charles-Norton's feet while he shivered slightly to the coldness of the steel. (Dolly cut very close.) Then, "All right; all done," she sang, dropping the scissors into the round pocket of her crackling apron; "now to breakfast, quick! And here's a kiss for the good boy." Placing her red lips upon his, she whisked off to the kitchenette; and Charles-Norton, emerging all dressed a little later, found the cheerful blue ware on the table, and his waffles upon his plate, hot beneath his napkin. After which, stuffing the morning paper into his pocket, he departed with another kiss on the landing, and strode forth for the L. Life was just as before. And yet, not quite. Because, to tell the truth, Charles-Norton was not absolutely happy.