THE LIFE OF COUSIN BILL SHOWS THAT
TONSORIAL ART IS NOT ALWAYS FOR
HEART’S SAKE
THAT’S cousin Bill Adams. He was my aunt’s niece on his uncle’s side. He’s almost the image of George Washington with that wart on his nose. Maybe it’s Lincoln. Anyway, Bill had so many warts that his photograph looks like a railroad map.
Bill went to college and when he was about thirty years old my uncle decided that Bill ought to go to work again. Bill didn’t like this so good because he claimed that one backward step would make any man lose his carpet slippers.
Anyway, Uncle borrowed enough money to send Bill to college again for the pest-graduate course. It was a barber college and Bill cut almost as many classes as customers. They used to give would stripes for injuries received in the second chair from the right and perfume was used whenever they couldn’t get anethetics.
Bill was the prize student and used to operate on subjects at the daily clinic. The other pupils
45
