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- 9806
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:47:57.726Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 9732
- text
- CHAPTER XLII.
UPON THE HEEL OF THE LAST SCENE THE COSMOPOLITAN ENTERS THE BARBER'S
SHOP, A BENEDICTION ON HIS LIPS.
"Bless you, barber!"
Now, owing to the lateness of the hour, the barber had been all alone
until within the ten minutes last passed; when, finding himself rather
dullish company to himself, he thought he would have a good time with
Souter John and Tam O'Shanter, otherwise called Somnus and Morpheus, two
very good fellows, though one was not very bright, and the other an
arrant rattlebrain, who, though much listened to by some, no wise man
would believe under oath.
In short, with back presented to the glare of his lamps, and so to the
door, the honest barber was taking what are called cat-naps, and
dreaming in his chair; so that, upon suddenly hearing the benediction
above, pronounced in tones not unangelic, starting up, half awake, he
stared before him, but saw nothing, for the stranger stood behind. What
with cat-naps, dreams, and bewilderments, therefore, the voice seemed a
sort of spiritual manifestation to him; so that, for the moment, he
stood all agape, eyes fixed, and one arm in the air.
"Why, barber, are you reaching up to catch birds there with salt?"
"Ah!" turning round disenchanted, "it is only a man, then."
"_Only_ a man? As if to be but a man were nothing. But don't be too sure
what I am. You call me _man_, just as the townsfolk called the angels
who, in man's form, came to Lot's house; just as the Jew rustics called
the devils who, in man's form, haunted the tombs. You can conclude
nothing absolute from the human form, barber."
"But I can conclude something from that sort of talk, with that sort of
dress," shrewdly thought the barber, eying him with regained
self-possession, and not without some latent touch of apprehension at
being alone with him. What was passing in his mind seemed divined by the
other, who now, more rationally and gravely, and as if he expected it
should be attended to, said: "Whatever else you may conclude upon, it is
my desire that you conclude to give me a good shave," at the same time
loosening his neck-cloth. "Are you competent to a good shave, barber?"
"No broker more so, sir," answered the barber, whom the business-like
proposition instinctively made confine to business-ends his views of the
visitor.
"Broker? What has a broker to do with lather? A broker I have always
understood to be a worthy dealer in certain papers and metals."
"He, he!" taking him now for some dry sort of joker, whose jokes, he
being a customer, it might be as well to appreciate, "he, he! You
understand well enough, sir. Take this seat, sir," laying his hand on a
great stuffed chair, high-backed and high-armed, crimson-covered, and
raised on a sort of dais, and which seemed but to lack a canopy and
quarterings, to make it in aspect quite a throne, "take this seat, sir."
"Thank you," sitting down; "and now, pray, explain that about the
broker. But look, look--what's this?" suddenly rising, and pointing,
with his long pipe, towards a gilt notification swinging among colored
fly-papers from the ceiling, like a tavern sign, "_No Trust?_" "No trust
means distrust; distrust means no confidence. Barber," turning upon him
excitedly, "what fell suspiciousness prompts this scandalous confession?
My life!" stamping his foot, "if but to tell a dog that you have no
confidence in him be matter for affront to the dog, what an insult to
take that way the whole haughty race of man by the beard! By my heart,
sir! but at least you are valiant; backing the spleen of Thersites with
the pluck of Agamemnon."
"Your sort of talk, sir, is not exactly in my line," said the barber,
rather ruefully, being now again hopeless of his customer, and not
without return of uneasiness; "not in my line, sir," he emphatically
repeated.
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