with some difficulty, and one of the footmen
wiped me as clean as he could with his handkerchief, for I was filthily
bemired; and my nurse confined me to my box, till we returned home; where
the queen was soon informed of what had passed, and the footmen spread it
about the court: so that all the mirth for some days was at my expense.

CHAPTER VI.

Several contrivances of the author to please the king and queen. He
shows his skill in music. The king inquires into the state of England,
which the author relates to him. The king's observations thereon.

I used to attend the king's levee once or twice a week, and had often
seen him under the barber's hand, which indeed was at first very terrible
to behold; for the razor was almost twice as long as an ordinary scythe.
His majesty, according to the custom of the country, was only shaved
twice a-week. I once prevailed on the barber to give me some of the suds
or lather, out of which I picked forty or fifty of the strongest stumps
of hair. I then took a piece of fine wood, and cut it like the back of a
comb, making several holes in it at equal distances with as small a
needle as I could get from Glumdalclitch. I fixed in the stumps so
artificially, scraping and sloping them with my knife toward the points,
that I made a very tolerable comb; which was a seasonable supply, my own
being so much broken in the teeth, that it was almost useless: neither
did I know any artist in that country so nice and exact, as would
undertake to make me another.

And this puts me in mind of an amusement, wherein I spent many of my
leisure hours. I desired the queen's woman to save for me the combings
of her majesty's hair, whereof in time I got a good quantity; and
consulting with my friend the cabinet-maker, who had received general
orders to do little jobs for me, I directed him to make two chair-frames,
no larger than those I had in my box, and to bore little holes with a
fine awl, round those parts where I designed the backs and seats; through
these holes I wove the strongest hairs I could pick out, just after the
manner of cane chairs in England. When they were finished, I made a
present of them to her majesty; who kept them in her cabinet, and used to
show them for curiosities, as indeed they were the wonder of every one
that beheld them. The queen would have me sit upon one of these chairs,
but I absolutely refused to obey her, protesting I would rather die than
place a di