²⁴ The boys themselves are described as being of the ‘baby class’ (p. 189) who senselessly win arguments by recourse to the taunting rhyme ‘Nigger, nigger, never die, | Black face and shiny eye’ (p. 167), and Reifsnyder’scustomers resort ‘pathetically’ to childhood songs to ease their fear of Henry’s disfigurement: ‘He has no face in the front of his head, | In the place where his face ought to grow’ (p. 177).