After many propositions, they offered to bet him ten guineas that he
would not repeat one sentence, and that only, during the space of ten
minutes. Cunningly thinking that he had his men, the barber started
up and swore he could repeat any sentence for an hour. After having
blithely stepped home for a supply of cash, he returned, and a bet of
fifty guineas having been made, both stakes were deposited under a
hat on the table, the conditions being that the barber should without
intermission repeat the words "_There he goes_," for half an hour's
continuance. He accordingly took his station at the table, and, with
a watch before him to note the time, began his recital of _There he
goes_, _There he goes_, _There he goes_.
When he had kept on in a steady and unalterable tone for a quarter of
an hour, one of the gentlemen, with a view to lead the barber from his
stated subject, lifted up the hat, counted out half the money, and
saying "D--n me if I don't go," put the cash in his pocket and walked
off. This circumstance, however, had no effect upon the barber. A few
minutes later the man who remained coolly pocketed the residue of the
money, and added, as the barber repeated the words _There he goes_,
"And d--n me if I don't follow him." The barber was now left alone with
his eyes riveted on the watch, anxious for the expiration of the short
time which still remained to elapse before his bet was won, but more
confident than ever.
In the meantime, the departure of the two strangers without settling
the bill excited the notice of the landlord; he went into the room,
and the barber, looking him in the face, kept repeating _There he
goes_, "Yes, sir, I know it; they have both been gone some time; pray
are you to pay the bill?" No answer being given but _There he goes_,
the host immediately ran for the barber's wife and a doctor, supposing
him in a state of hopeless delirium. They arrived; his wife, taking
him round the neck, in vain endeavoured to make him deviate from his
purpose; the doctor, after feeling his pulse, pronounced him in a high
fever, and was getting ready his apparatus for opening a vein, when
the time expired, and the barber in a frenzy of excitement, jumped
upon the table and exclaimed, "Bravo, I have won fifty guineas of the
two gentlemen who are gone out!" The persons present now concluded,
beyond a doubt, that he had lost his senses; his wife screamed, and the
landlord called for assistance to have him secured.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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