Though the house was not large it had, like all houses on Floral
Heights, an altogether royal bathroom of porcelain and glazed tile and
metal sleek as silver. The towel-rack was a rod of clear glass set in
nickel. The tub was long enough for a Prussian Guard, and above the
set bowl was a sensational exhibit of tooth-brush holder, shaving-brush
holder, soap-dish, sponge-dish, and medicine-cabinet, so glittering and
so ingenious that they resembled an electrical instrument-board. But the
Babbitt whose god was Modern Appliances was not pleased. The air of the
bathroom was thick with the smell of a heathen toothpaste. "Verona been
at it again! 'Stead of sticking to Lilidol, like I've re-peat-ed-ly
asked her, she's gone and gotten some confounded stinkum stuff that
makes you sick!"

The bath-mat was wrinkled and the floor was wet. (His daughter Verona
eccentrically took baths in the morning, now and then.) He slipped on
the mat, and slid against the tub. He said "Damn!" Furiously he snatched
up his tube of shaving-cream, furiously he lathered, with a belligerent
slapping of the unctuous brush, furiously he raked his plump cheeks
with a safety-razor. It pulled. The blade was dull. He said,
"Damn--oh--oh--damn it!"

He hunted through the medicine-cabinet for a packet of new razor-blades
(reflecting, as invariably, "Be cheaper to buy one of these dinguses and
strop your own blades,") and when he discovered the packet, behind the
round box of bicarbonate of soda, he thought ill of his wife for putting
it there and very well of himself for not saying "Damn." But he did say
it, immediately afterward, when with wet and soap-slippery fingers he
tried to remove the horrible little envelope and crisp clinging oiled
paper from the new blade. Then there was the problem, oft-pondered,