Worse Things Happen at Sea! by Alan Snow

Author:Alan Snow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers

“There isn’t a real boil, is there?”

“In my spare time I’d do hair-related experiments.”

chapter 25

THE DOCTOR’S STORY

“I didn’t start out with the intention of being a crook. My father was a doctor, as was his father before him, and my mother had her heart set on me being one as well. I started my medical training in Edinburgh, and at first it went very well. Then I fell in with what I can only call “a bad set.”

“I’d developed an interest in hair and everything about it. The chemical composition of different colors, the way it grew, how to make it grow, everything! I still find it fascinating. In my spare time I’d do hair-related experiments, and slowly my experiments took over my life. I stopped attending lectures and seldom went out apart from to the barbers to collect sweepings. I became more and more obsessed with male early-onset baldness. I knew if I could understand it, I might be able to find a cure, and that would make my name and fortune.

“In the early autumn of my third year I discovered certain chemical changes in the scalps and hair of those becoming rapidly bald, and I knew I was on to something. But there was a problem. I needed hair samples, and I needed them from the very men who least liked giving it up. Those going prematurely bald!

“In my desperation I turned to drink, and one night in a bar I met two very unsavory characters. I fell into conversation with them and told them about my work. Strangely they seemed very interested, and after a few more drinks said they might be able to help me with my studies. I asked how, as they both had a very full head of hair, and they told me it was better not to ask. Before I left, I gave them my card and thought nothing more of it.

“Then a few days later, there was a knock at my door. I was surprised, but as the rent wasn’t due, I answered it. Before me were the men I’d met in the bar.

“I wasn’t sure why they had come to visit me, and not having had a drink, they seemed even less appealing. I asked them what they wanted, and they told me they had something for me.”

“What was it?” asked Arthur.

“Fresh hair from a balding man! They produced a small folded piece of newspaper and unwrapped it to reveal a pile of fine ginger hair. Now, I’ve not mentioned this, but ginger hair is the highest in the chemicals I was seeking, so my delight was intense and I offered to pay the men well. The men then said that the hair was a free sample, and more could be provided whenever I wanted. With that, they left their cards and were gone.”

Willbury had raised a hand. “Sir, let me ask you their names?”

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