His toilet was not so intricate and serious a matter as it might have been forty years or so previous, but was nevertheless a duty most scrupulously and conscientiously performed, from June to December, and round again.

The last thing attended to before putting on his coat was always carefully to brush and dispose his hair.

Until within two or three years, he had been able to keep up appearances by coaxing a gray rift across the top of the bald place; but it had grown month by month thinner and grayer, and more difficult to keep in position, until at last he had bravely told himself it was a vanity and a delusion, and had consigned it to obscurity and oblivion among the rusty side-locks which still sturdily surrounded the naked and inaccessible summit.

Since that time he had occasionally allowed his thoughts to revert to it regretfully, though not bitterly nor rebelliously.
But, on this particular morning, he stood, brush in hand, before his looking-glass with an expression upon his elderly features at once undecided, wistful, and shame-faced; detached, after a short search, a few frosty spears from the assortment at the left side of his head; scrutinized them anxiously for a moment, and then, by the aid of a little water, and cautious brushing and pulling, succeeded in spatting them down into their long-abandoned place.
"I'm an old fool, that's certain!" muttered he, as, after a final surreptitious sort of glance at the unaccustomed embellishment, he turned away.

"But then I don't go out calling every day!" He slipped on his coat, opened his door, and descended the stairs with his usual solid deliberation.