Cyril Hennessy was a bitter man, a bitter man who wanted a haircut. The further he got down this street, in the sunshine, the more he felt the urge to visit his barber and have his hair seen to. In his head (those monologues he loved to conduct) Cyril made it sound as though he meant his man, some valet-like creature who’d come into being for the sole purpose of tending to the Hennessy tresses. How his mind meandered at times in idle fancy. And although Cyril was no self-obsessed dandy, he did place airs on certain mundane practices in his life. This haircut was a case in point. The clemency of the day, surprising as it was only March, added an extra urgency to Cyril’s need to see a coiffeur, crimper or whatever you care to call it. Through a combination of pressing circumstances (one thing after another like cannon fodder) he’d neglected to have his hair looked at beyond his usual one-month maximum. The length of his locks combined with the warmth of the day was bringing way too...