“There is rest for the weary, There is rest for the weary, There is rest for the weary, There is rest for you!” My reason for choosing this above all other music is that these people in their dull, hard life were really weary, and they really found rest in this song. Some years ago I went for a shave into a barber shop of a New England city. I was to deliver an address, and somehow I have found nothing more soothing to the nerves than to sink down into a chair while the barber rubs in the lather and then scrapes it off. All this, of course, is conditioned upon the sharpness of the razor and my inability to hear the barber’s questions. I have often wondered if imaginative barbers ever feel a desire to seize the victim by the throat and use the razor like a carving-knife. Several of them have looked at me as though they would enjoy doing this, and the thought has actually driven me to a safety razor. But, at any rate, shortly before this speech was due I went in for my shave. At that time I carried an electric instrument, a sort of personal telephone, which enabled me to hear at least part of conversations. It contained a small battery, a sound magnifier and an ear piece. I hung this on a nail, threw my overcoat and hat over it, and sat down for my shave when the boss barber motioned “next.” I think I must have drifted away in a half-dream while the barber went over one side of my face. He was just brushing in the hot lather on the other side when I suddenly became aware of a great commotion in the shop. I straightened up with one side of my face well lathered, to find a “spirit hunt” in progress. The barber stood with his brush in one hand and an open razor in the other. Several men had armed themselves with canes and umbrellas. A fierce-looking Irishman with a club was stealthily approaching my overcoat as it hung on the nail. He raised his club to strike a heavy blow. I jumped out of that chair as I fancy a person would leave the electric chair if he were suddenly freed. I caught him by the arm. “What are you spoiling my overcoat for?” “It’s a spirit. The devil himself. Hear him holler in there! Hark at him! Do ye not hear thim groans?” Then it suddenly came to me what the “spirit” was. I had put my “acousticon” or electric hearing device into its case without shutting off the electric current. It was really a small telephone, and while the current is on, the sound magnifier gathers the sounds in a room and throws them out in a series of whistles, groanings and roarings. The Irishman and his friends had finally located the “spirit” emitting these noises under my coat, where it certainly was hiding.