“Mrs. Pike is this lady from New Orleans,” said Leota, puffing, and pressing into Mrs. Fletcher’s scalp with strong red-nailed fingers. “A friend, not a customer. You see, like maybe I told you last time, me and Fred and Sal and Joe all had us a fuss, so Sal and Joe up and moved out, so we didn’t do a thing but rent out their room. So we rented it to Mrs. Pike. And Mr. Pike.” She flicked an ash into the basket of dirty towels. “Mrs. Pike is a very decided blonde. She bought me the peanuts.”

“She must be cute,” said Mrs. Fletcher.

“Honey, ‘cute’ ain’t the word for what she is. I’m tellin’ you, Mrs. Pike is attractive. She has her a good time. She’s got a sharp eye out, Mrs. Pike has.”

She dashed the comb through the air, and paused dramatically as a cloud of Mrs. Fletcher’s hennaed hair floated out of the lavender teeth like a small storm-cloud.

“Hair fallin’.”

“Aw, Leota.”

“Uh-huh, commencin’ to fall out,” said Leota, combing again, and letting fall another cloud.

“Is it any dandruff in it?” Mrs. Fletcher was frowning, her hair-line eyebrows diving down toward her nose, and her wrinkled, beady-lashed eyelids batting with concentration.

“Nope.” She combed again. “Just fallin’ out.”

“Bet it was that last perm’nent you gave me that did it,” Mrs. Fletcher said cruelly. “Remember you cooked me fourteen minutes.”

“You had fourteen minutes comin’ to you,” said Leota with finality.

“Bound to be somethin’,” persisted Mrs. Fletcher. “Dandruff, dandruff. I couldn’t of caught a thing like that from Mr. Fletcher, could I?”

“Well,” Leota answered at last, “you know what I heard in here yestiddy, one of Thelma’s ladies was settin’ over yonder in Thelma’s booth gittin’ a machineless, and I don’t mean to insist or insinuate or anything, Mrs. Fletcher, but Thelma’s lady just happ’med to throw out—I forgotten what she was talkin’ about at the time—that you was p-r-e-g., and lots of times that’ll make your hair do awful funny, fall out and God knows what all. It just ain’t our fault, is the way I look at it.”

There was a pause. The women stared at each other in the mirror.

“Who was it?” demanded Mrs. Fletcher.

“Honey, I really couldn’t say,” said Leota. “Not that you look it.”

“Where’s Thelma? I’ll get it out of her,” said Mrs. Fletcher.

“Now, honey, I wouldn’t go and git mad over a little thing like that,” Leota said, combing hastily, as though to hold Mrs. Fletcher down by the hair. “I’m sure it was somebody didn’t mean no harm in the world. How far gone are you?”

“Just wait,” said Mrs. Fletcher, and shrieked for Thelma, who came in and took a drag from Leota’s cigarette.