eral adoption of the razor. I am not going to attempt
to describe a gentleman starching and curling his whiskers,--it would
be too horrible,--but I like to dwell on the shaver. He whistles or
perhaps hums. He draws hot water from the faucet--Alas, poor Edward! He
makes a rich, creamy lather either in a mug or (for the sake of literary
directness) on his own with a shaving-stick. He strops his razor, or
perhaps selects a blade already sharpened for his convenience. He rubs
in the lather. He shaves, and, as Dr. Johnson so shrewdly pointed out
that night at Dr. Taylor's, 'Sir, of a thousand shavers, two do not
shave so much alike as not to be distinguished.' Perhaps he cuts
himself, for a clever man at self-mutilation can do it, even with a
safety; but who cares? Come, Little Alum, the shaver's friend, smartly
to the rescue! And then, he exercises the shaver's prerogative and
powders his face.

Fortunately the process does not always go so smoothly. There are times
when the Local Brotherhood of Razors have gone on strike and refuse to
be stropped. There are times at which the twelve interchangeable blades
are hardly better for shaving than twelve interchangeable
postage-stamps. There are times when the lather might have been fairly
guaranteed to dry on the face. There are times when Little Alum, the
shaver's friend, might well feel the sting of his own powerlessness. But
these times are the blessed cause of genial satisfaction when everything
goes happily.

Truly it is worth while to grow a beard--for the sake of shaving it off.
Not such a beard as one might starch and curl--but the beginnings--an
obfuscation of the chin, cheeks, and upper lip--a horror of unseemly
growth--a landscape of the face comparable to

that ominous tract which, all agree,
Hides the Dark Tower

in Browning's grim poem of 'Childe Roland.' _Then_ is the time to strop
your favorite razor! I wonder, while stropping mine, if any man still
lives who uses a moustache cup?

OH, THE AFTERNOON TEA!

Any man who knows that, sooner or later, he must go to another afternoon
tea cannot but rejoice at the recent invention of an oval, platter-like
saucer, large enough to hold with ease a cup, a lettuce or other
sandwich, and a dainty trifle of pastry. The thing was needed: the
modesty of the anonymous inventor--evidently _not_ Mr. Edison--reveals
him one of the large body of occasional and unwilling tea-goers. We, the
reluctant and unwi