eak of barbers! it's all ye ken about it. Commend me
to a safe employment, and a profitable. They may give others a nick, and
draw blood, but catch them hurting themselves. They are not exposed to
colds and rheumatics, from east winds and rainy weather; for they sit, in
white aprons, plaiting hair into wigs for auld folks that have bell-pows,
or making false curls for ladies that would fain like to look smart in
the course of nature. And then they go from house to house, like
gentlemen in the morning; cracking with Maister this or Madam that, as
they soap their chins with scented-soap, or put their hair up in marching
order either for kirk or playhouse. Then at their leisure, when they're
not thrang at home, they can pare corns to the gentry, or give
ploughmen's heads the bicker-cut for a penny, and the hair into the
bargain for stuffing chairs with; and between us, who knows--many
rottener ship has come to land--but that some genty Miss, fond of plays,
poems, and novels, may fancy our Benjie when he is giving her red hair a
twist with the torturing irons, and run away with him, almost whether he
will or not, in a stound of unbearable love!"

Here making an end of my discourse, and halting to draw breath, I looked
Nanse broad in the face, as much as to say, "Contradict me if ye daur,"
and, "What think ye of that now?"--The man is not worth his lugs, that
allows his wife to be maister; and being by all laws, divine and human,
the head of the house, I aye made a rule of keeping my putt good. To be
candid, howsoever, I must take leave to confess, that Nanse, being a
reasonable woman, gave me but few opportunities of exerting my authority
in this way. As in other matters, she soon came, on reflection, to see
the propriety of what I had been saying and setting forth. Besides, she
had such a motherly affection towards our bit callant, that sending him
abroad would have been the death of her.

To be sure, since these days--which, alas, and woe's me! are not
yesterday now, as my grey hair and wrinkled brow but too visibly remind
me--such ups and downs have taken place in the commercial world, that the
barber line has been clipped of its profits and shaved close, from a
patriotic competition among its members, like all the rest. Among other
things, hair-powder, which was used from the sweep on the lum-head to the
king on the throne, is only now in fashion with the Lords of Session and
valy-deshambles; and pig-tails have