Danson was then, and for many a long year afterwards, our _Magnus Apollo_ in the hair-dressing line. Never was there such a good-natured, polite, kind soul as Danson. He was the most talkative of haircutters, and they are generally a talkative race. What demand he used to be in on the eve of a ball or a great party in those days, when so much stress was laid upon curls and wiggery! Many a good story was told at his expense; but gentlemen of his profession have ever been so martyred. He was said to be of a very inquisitive turn of mind, and much given to fathoming the why and the wherefore of every novelty and mystery which came in his way. This propensity once led him into an awkward scrape. Shower-baths were not as general and everywhere affairs then as they are now. Our Apollo, once summoned to put some lady patroness into curls, had, upon his arrival, to wait some little time in the ante-room. A tall, oblong, curtained sort of box met his eye. What could it be? He cautiously opened the door, peeped and peeped into it, but could make nothing of it. A string dangled from above. And what was that for? Our philosopher, bent upon experiment, took it into his hand; pulled it; and fiz—souse—splash! he was not exactly caught like a rat in a trap, but down came Niagara upon his devoted head, as quick as lightning, and as loud as thunder. The victim screamed; while, to enjoy the sport, in rushed the lady, and the lady’s maid, and the lady’s husband, and Prim, the butler, and John, the footman, and Jane, the housemaid, and Molly, the cook, and Sally, the scullion, and the children, and the lap-dog, and there was such laughing and such barking as human misfortune never called forth before. Merry mourners at a funeral never equalled them in their uproarious enjoyment. There had not been a richer scene since Falstaff was “carried off in a buck basket,” and then, as he described it, “thrown into the Thames and cooled, glowing hot, in that surge, like a horse-shoe; think of that, hissing hot, think of that, Master Brook.” It was enough to give a man hydrophobia for life. Our old stagers must also recollect the Liverpool Hunt of those days, famous, far and wide, for its good riders, good horses, and good dogs. It was a glorious sight to the lovers of the sport to see them turn out when “A southerly wind and a cloudy sky Proclaimed it a hunting morn.”