one day. 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. "Some people are born so. They are
quiescent; other people can jump about like grasshoppers. Do you know
grasshoppers are very interesting?" And he began to talk irrelevantly on
insects.