the end of the chin before I had got my mind made up. He immediately

sharpened his razor--he might have done it before. I do not like a close

shave, and would not let him go over me a second time. I tried to get

him to put up his razor, dreading that he would make for the side of my

chin, my pet tender spot, a place which a razor cannot touch twice

without making trouble; but he said he only wanted to just smooth off one

little roughness, and in the same moment he slipped his razor along the

forbidden ground, and the dreaded pimple-signs of a close shave rose up

smarting and answered to the call. Now he soaked his towel in bay rum,

and slapped it all over my face nastily; slapped it over as if a human

being ever yet washed his face in that way. Then he dried it by slapping

with the dry part of the towel, as if a human being ever dried his face

in such a fashion; but a barber seldom rubs you like a Christian. Next

he poked bay rum into the cut place with his towel, then choked the

wound with powdered starch, then soaked it with bay rum again, and would

have gone on soaking and powdering it forevermore, no doubt, if I had not

rebelled and begged off. He powdered my whole face now, straightened me

up, and began to plow my hair thoughtfully with his hands. Then he

suggested a shampoo, and said my hair needed it badly, very badly.

I observed that I shampooed it myself very thoroughly in the bath

yesterday. I "had him" again. He next recommended some of "Smith's Hair

Glorifier," and offered to sell me a bottle. I declined. He praised the

new perfume, "Jones's Delight of the Toilet," and proposed to sell me

some of that. I declined again. He tendered me a tooth-wash atrocity of

his own invention, and when I declined offered to trade knives with me.

325

Sketches New and Old