n except the quiet hum of the mechanical shampoo brush and the soft
burble of running water.

The barber began removing the wet towels from my face one by one. He
peeled them off with the professional neatness of an Egyptologist
unwrapping a mummy. When he reached my face he looked searchingly at it.
There was suspicion in his eye.

"Been out of town?" he questioned.

"Yes," I admitted.

"Who's been doing your work?" he asked. This question, from a barber,
has no reference to one's daily occupation. It means "who has been
shaving you."

I knew it was best to own up. I'd been in the wrong, and I meant to
acknowledge it with perfect frankness.

"I've been shaving myself," I said.

My barber stood back from me in contempt. There was a distinct sensation
all down the line of barbers. One of them threw a wet rag in a corner
with a thud, and another sent a sudden squirt from an atomizer into his
customer's eyes as a mark of disgust.

My barber continued to look at me narrowly.

"What razor do you use?" he said.

"A safety razor," I answered.

The barber had begun to dash soap over my face; but he stopped--aghast
at what I had said.

A safety razor to a barber is like a red rag to a bull.

"If it was me," he went on, beating lather into me as he spoke, "I
wouldn't let one of them things near my face: No, sir: There ain't no
safety in them. They tear the hide clean off you--just rake the hair
right out by the follicles," as he said this he was illustrating his
meaning with jabs of his razor,--"them things just cut a man's face all
to pieces," he jabbed a stick of alum against an open cut that he had
made,--"And as for cleanliness, for sanitation, for this here hygiene
and for germs, I wouldn't have them round me for a fortune."

I said nothing. I knew I had deserved it, and I kept quiet.

[Illustration: When he reached my face he looked searchingly at it.]

The barber gradually subsided. Under other circumstances he would have
told me something of the spring training of the baseball clubs, or
the last items from the Jacksonville track, or any of those things which
a cultivated man loves to hear discussed between breakfast and business.
But I was not worth it. As he neared the end of the shaving he spoke
again, this time in a confidential, almost yearning, tone.

"Massage?" he said.

"No thank you."

"Shampoo the scalp?" he whispered.

"No thanks."

"Singe the hair?" he coaxed.

"No thanks."

The