is shoulders! No other man _in the world_ ever
did that; none in the world _ever_ had feathers on his shoulders that
way! Oh, Goosie, Goosie, what shall we do!!!"

"Let them alone," said Charles-Norton, now quite vexed. "They're mine;
they don't hurt _you_, do they? Let 'em alone!" He raised his arms and
began to slip his shirt up again.

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 o