s face began lathering him again. I now saw
that he was getting nervous and anxious, and concluded to try and
entertain him with some sort of a "ghost story." Just as I was trying to
conjure up something to "spring on him" he remarked that I wasn't very
sparing of my soap.

"No, sir. I am not stingy with soap; and by the way, this soap is
different from any you ever saw before. This, sir, is the homa-jona,
radical, tragical, incomprehensible compound extract of the
double-distilled rute-te-tute shaving soap."

I then went on with my auction talk on soap already familiar to the
reader, and spun it out to him as rapidly as I could, without a pause,
or the least hesitation.

While doing so, instead of making my usual gestures, I kept the brush
full of lather, and with increased enthusiasm slashed it on, first on
one side and then on the other, till I had gone through a large part of
my auction talk.

Meanwhile I had been constantly thinking of a story told me, when but a
small boy, of a young man in a country town who had been placed in
almost exactly the same predicament that I was in at that moment. I made
up my mind, if worse came to worse, I would get out of my scrape the
same as the other fellow did.

Therefore, having nearly finished my soap talk, I wiped his face once
more, and had made up a lot of new lather to give him one more round,
when I squared myself in front of him in a confidential way, and said:

"And another thing about this soap that I haven't told you about,
is----"

"Well, by Heavens! man," he interrupted, "you have got to hurry."

I saw that the poor fellow was fairly paralyzed, and didn't know whether
to try and make his escape or not.

"Sure enough," I replied, as I lathered him up again, and went on with
more talk about my soap. I felt certain that the barber would return
before I could finish lathering him this time; but he did not and I was
obliged to wipe off his face again, and had succeeded in giving one more
coat of lather, when he raised up in the chair and said:

"Great guns! ain't you ever going to shave me?"

"Oh!" I answered, with apparent surprise, "do you want to get shaved?"

"Why, of course I do, you infernal fool! What do you suppose I----?"

"Oh, well," I replied, recalling the aforesaid story to mind, "you get
shaved across the street. We only lather, here."

[Illustration: OH WELL, YOU GET SHAVED ACROSS THE STREET, ETC.--PAGE
656.]

He jumped from the chair, s