the first block, I was still managing to keep the shoes on my feet, and soon, felt quite competent. Just as I started to relax, my companion said, "Take it easy! You're overdoing a good thing."

The beauty shop was closed when we got there, but in response to Beth's knocking, the door was opened by an exceptionally tall woman whose hair was piled even higher on her head. She certainly didn't look like a beauty operator, but this was Cynthia all right. Beth made a hurried introduction and we followed the tall woman into the back and she motioned me to sit down, removed the scarf and the curlers with a smirk and gave them back to Beth. Then she just looked at me for a minute or so, still silent, rose to her full height again and went to a large locked case and came back with a wig! She placed it on my head, placed a few pins in it, then still working in silence, worked it over with a comb and brush and innumerable adroit twists of her fingers. When she stopped, she looked at me again, then went to a counter, selected several tubes and came back and sat down on a stool beside me. She bent forward then and began to swiftly apply makeup to my face. As she worked, she bent forward and I nervously averted my eyes from the long, low neckline in the ruffled blouse she wore. She still didn't look like a beautician!

In a very few minutes she had finished, and swivelled me around to face the huge mirror. Somehow it all didn't make sense - I mean the image, for I couldn't find me not unless oh, surely now

oh, my!

"I think she's got it!" chimed in Beth. They let me sit there for an- other half minute, absorbed with my reflection, then Beth said. “Come, Cynthia has to leave now." The tall woman nodded in silence. “We'll stop back in the morning and get the rest of the stuff and pay you then, okay, Cynthia?" Again the tall one nodded, without hesitation.

It was all very strange, but in another two minutes we were back on the street. Cynthia followed us, locked the door, and with a lithe stride, went over to a waiting car, a convertible driven by an older man. They drove off ahead of us and as we watched them go, Cynthia slid into the middle of the seat, her towering hairdo in rare contrast to the short man sitting beside her.

"That was all very fine," I said. “But also very curious. She didn't seem to be worried about us paying her, but she also seemed mad. Why she didn't even speak once!" Beth looked at me in astonishment. "Why why for goodness sakes you mean you didn't know?”