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 ruin 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.
He returned to business after the miscarriage of this
last enterprise, sprinkled me all over, legs and all,
greased my hair in defiance of my protest against
it, rubbed and scrubbed a good deal of it out by the
roots, and combed and brushed the rest, parting it
behind, and plastering the eternal inverted arch of
hair down on my forehead, and then, while combing
my scant eyebrows and defiling them with pomade, strung
out an account of the achievements of a six-ounce
black-and-tan terrier of his till I heard the whistles
blow for noon, and knew I was five minutes too late
for the train. Then he snatched away the towel,
brushed it lightly about my face, passed his comb
through my eyebrows once more, and gaily sang out
“Next!”
This barber fell down and died of apoplexy two hours
later. I am waiting over a day for my revenge—I
am going to attend his funeral.
Belfast is a peculiarly religious community.
This may be said of the whole of the North of Ireland.
About one-half of the people are Protestants and
the other half Catholics. Each party does all
it can to make its own doctrines popular and draw
the affections of the irreligious toward them.
One hears constantly of the most touching instances
of this zeal. A week ago a vast concourse of
Catholics assembled at Armagh to dedicate a new Cathedral;
and when they started home again the roadways were
lined with groups of meek and lowly Protestants who
stoned them till all the region round about was marked
with blood. I thought that only Catholics argued
in that way, but it seems to be a mistake.
