I suppose you've noticed that I've done a good deal of chin-scratching to-night. Some people do that when they're thinking hard, but not so with me. Oh, no, the simple fact is I got shaved by a new barber and I guess I'll grow a beard in future. Some people say there's lots of comedy in a barber shop. They mean tragedy. Again some people think there's poetry in the prattlings of the knight of the brush. I know one man who thinks different. Little Archie Rickets has a horror of the tribe and has a scheme to head 'em off. Whenever he has to patronize a strange barber during the course of his travels, it is his invariable custom to immediately hand out a piece of money before sitting down in the chair, and whisper: "Here, put this in your pocket for yourself." The barber, delighted of course, always declares that he has never before received a tip before commencing operations. [Illustration] Whereupon Rickets will frown and cut him short with: "That is not a tip--it's hush money." And in every case the barber tumbles to the racket, and puts a lock on his lips. Rickets was telling me the other day about a wonderful bookkeeper his father used to have in his office. "An all-around athlete," he declared, with a grin. "Indeed," I replied, knowing he had a card up his sleeve, for Rickets is quite prone to have his little joke. [Illustration] "Yes, indeed," he continued, "you ought to have seen him balancing the books. Why, he could keep the day-book in the air while he juggled the ledger on his nose and totaled up the journal with either right or left hand. Oh, he was fine, but pop had to let him go." "How was that?" I asked. "He was too much of an adept at the horizontal bar." "Yes," I remarked, "that same bar has doubtless been the cause of many a fine fellow's downfall. But it is becoming the fashion now among men who lead a strenuous life to give up their tippling. I was just reading that Santos Dumont, the celebrated Brazilian air-ship navigator, does not indulge at all." "Quite right," remarked Rickets, soberly; "probably he is afraid of taking a drop too much." There's poor old Juggins, who used to be a great friend of mine till he took to drink. I knew he would get his desserts if he continued his habit of a periodical spree, and the other day sure enough he turned up in the pen when the cases of drunk and disorderly were called. "Officer," said the police-court judge, "what made you think the prisoner was drunk?" [Illustration] "Well, your honor, as he was going along the sidewalk he ran plump into a street lamppost. He backed away, replaced his hat on his head, and firmly started forward again, but once more ran into the post. "Four times he tried to get by the post, but each time his uncertain steps took him right into the iron pole. "After the fourth attempt and failure to pass the post he backed off, fell to the pavement, and clutching his head in his hands, murmured, as one lost to all hope: