Page:Andreyev - The Little Angel (Knopf, 1916).djvu/93



, the barber, arranged a dirty sheeting on his customer's chest, and tucking it into his collar, shouted abruptly in a sharp tone, "Boy! water!"

The customer, examining his face in the glass with that sharpened intentness and interest which is exhibited only at the barber's, observed that another pimple had appeared on his chin, and turning his eyes away in dissatisfaction they fell straight on a thin little hand, which stretched out from somewhere at the side, and put a tin of hot water down on the ledge below the looking-glass. When he raised his eyes still higher, they caught the strange and distorted looking reflection of the barber, and he noticed the sharp threatening glance which he was casting down on the head of some one, and the silent movements of his lips, caused by an inaudible but expressive whisper. If the master himself was not doing the shaving but one of the assistants, Prokopy or Mikhailo, then the whisper would become loud, and take the form of a vague threat:

"Just you wait!"

This meant that the boy was not quick enough with the water, and that punishment awaited him.