would not make a
vizier. But then what am I to do for a barber? No, no, Mustapha; a
good vizier is easy to be found, but a good barber, you know as well as
I do, requires some talent."

"Your slave is aware of that," replied Mustapha, "but he has travelled
in other countries, where it is no uncommon circumstance for men to hold
more than one office under government; sometimes much more incompatible
than those of barber and vizier, which are indeed closely connected.
The affairs of most nations are settled by the potentates during their
toilet. While I am shaving the head of your sublime highness, I can
receive your commands to take off the heads of others; and you can have
your person and your state both put in order at the same moment."

"Very true, Mustapha; then, on condition that you continue your office
of barber, I have no objection to throw that of vizier into the
bargain."

Mustapha again prostrated himself, with his tweezers in his hand. He
then rose, and continued his office.

"You can write, Mustapha," observed the pacha, after a short silence.

"Min Allah! God forbid that I should acknowledge it, or I should
consider myself as unfit to assume the office in which your sublime
highness has invested me."

"Although unnecessary for me, I thought it might be requisite for a
vizier," observed the pacha.

"Reading may be necessary, I will allow," replied Mustapha; "but I trust
I can soon prove to your highness that writing is as dangerous as it is
useless. More men have been ruined by that unfortunate acquirement,
than by any other; and dangerous as it is to all, it is still more
dangerous to men in high power. For instance, your sublime highness
sends a message in writing, which is ill-received, and it is produced
against you; but had it been a verbal message, you could deny it, and
bastinado to death the Tartar who carried it, as a proof of your
sincerity."

"Very true, Mustapha."

"The grandfather of your slave," continued the barber-vizier, "held the
situation of receiver-general at the custom-house; and he was always in
a fury when he was obliged to take up the pen. It was his creed, that
no government could prosper when writing was in general use. `Observe,
Mustapha,' said he to me one day, `here is the curse of writing,--for
all the money which is paid in, I am obliged to give a receipt. What is
the consequence? that government loses many thousand sequins every year;
for when I apply to