n out, I guess," he said to himself.

CHAPTER XVII. THE MONSEIGNEUR AND THE NOMAD

Even more than Dr. Rockwell, Berry, the barber, was the most troubled
man in Lebanon on the day of the Orange funeral. Berry was a good
example of an unreasoning infatuation. The accident which had come to
his idol, with the certain fall of his fortunes, hit him so hard, that,
for the first time since he became a barber, his razor nipped the flesh
of more than one who sat in his red-upholstered chair.

In his position, Berry was likely to hear whatever gossip was going. Who
shall have perfect self-control with a giant bib under the chin, tipped
back on a chair that cannot be regulated, with a face covered by lather,
and two plantation fingers holding the nose? In these circumstances,
with much diplomacy, Berry corkscrewed his way into confidence, and when
he dipped a white cloth in bay-rum and eau-de-cologne, and laid it over
the face of the victim, with the finality of a satisfied inquisitor, it
was like giving the last smother to human individuality. An artist after
his kind, he no sooner got what he wanted than he carefully coaxed his
victim away from thoughts of the disclosures into the vague distance of
casual gossip once more.

Gradually and slowly he shepherded his patient back to the realms of
self-respect and individual personality. The border-line was at the
point where the fingers of his customer fluttered at a collar-button;
for Berry, who realized the power that lies in making a man look
ridiculous, never allowed a customer to be shaved or have his hair cut
with a collar on. When his customers had corns, off came the boots
also, and then Berry's triumph over the white man was complete. To call
attention to an exaggerated bunion when the odorous towel lay upon the
hidden features of what once was a "human," was the last act in the
drama of the Unmaking of Man.

Only when the client had felt in his pocket for the price of the
flaying, and laid it, with a ten-cent fee, on the ledge beneath the
mirror, where all the implements of the inquisition and the restoration
were assembled, did he feel manhood restored. If, however, he tried to
keep a vow of silence in the chair of execution, he paid a heavy price;
for Berry had his own methods of punishment. A little tighter grasp of
the nose; a little rougher scrape of the razor, and some sharp, stinging
liquid suddenly slapped with a cold palm on the excoriated spot, with
the