On the ceiling was an advertisement in the English tongue. I am inured by this time to the inconceivable stupidity of modern commerce, but (as the Pwca said to the Acorn) “the like of this I never saw.” There most certainly was not a man in the whole place who had ever heard of the English language, nor, I will bet a boot, had anyone been there before me who did, at any rate not since the pilgrimages stopped. Yet there was this advertisement staring me in the face, and what it told me to do was to buy a certain kind of bicycle. It gave no evidence in favour of the thing. It asserted. It said that this bicycle was the best. There was a picture of a young man riding on the bicycle, and under it in very small letters in the language of the country an address where such bicycles might be bought. The address was in a town as far away as Bristol is from Hull, and between it was range upon range of mountains, and never a road. I watched this advertisement, and the Barber all the while talked to me of the things of this world. He would have it that I was a stranger. He mentioned the place--it was about eighty miles away--from which I came. He said he knew it at once by my accent and my hesitation over their tongue. He asked me questions upon the politics of the place, and when I could not reply he assured me that he meant no harm; he knew that politics were not to be discussed among gentlemen. He recommended to me what barbers always recommend, and I saw that his bottles were from the ends of the earth--some French, some German, some American--at least their labels were. Then when he had shaved me he very politely began to whistle a tune. It was a music-hall tune. I had heard it first eighteen months before in Glasgow, but it had come there from New York. It was already beginning to be stale in London--it did not seem very new to the Barber, for he whistled it with thorough knowledge, and he added trills and voluntary passages of merit and originality. I asked him how much there was to pay. He named so considerable a sum that I looked at him doubtfully, but he still smiled, and I paid him. I asked him next how far it might be to the next village down the valley. He said three hours. I went on, and found that he had spoken the truth. In that next village I slept, and I went forward all the next day and half the next before I came to what you would call a town. But all the while the Barber remained in my mind. There are people like this all over the world, even on the edges of eternity. How can one ever be lonely? On High Places