The hat episode had led to a general regulation of his personal appearance.
He pondered gravely over the conundrum for some time, and then replied that he must have lost control over it.

The command went forth that he should visit a barber and learn how to control his hair.

He obeyed, and returned with his shock parted in the middle and plastered down heavily with pomatum, a saint of more than methodistical meekness.

On Zora declaring that he looked awful (he was indeed inconceivably hideous), and that she preferred Struwel Peter after all, he dutifully washed his head with soda (after grave consultation with the chambermaid), and sunned himself once more in the smiles of his mistress.
Now and then, however, as she was kind and not tyrannical, she felt a pin-prick of compunction.
"If you would rather do anything else, don't hesitate to say so." But Septimus, after having contemplated the world's potentialities of action with lack-luster eye, would declare that there was nothing else that could be done.

Then she could rate him soundly.
"If I proposed that we should sail up the Andes and eat fried moonbeams, you would say 'yes.' Why haven't you more initiative ?" "I'm like Mrs.Shandy," he replied.