But if there was no friction there was no cordiality between the partners. Beaumont’s attitude to Storth was almost of good-humoured contempt. Storth retaliated with undisguised scorn for his partner’s unpracticability and want of worldly wisdom. “What do you want sitting in the Town Council?” he grumbled at times. “There’s no honour in it. Why, hang it, the barber fellow that shaves me sits on the Town Council.” “And a very good councillor he makes, too. Why not? Does he shave you any the worse for being on the Council. I’m sure his opinion on matters municipal is none the worse for his being a barber. Shaving is really, if you think of the matter dispassionately, a most reputable occupation. The profession of a barber, you cannot call it a trade, is an ancient and an honourable one. It was formerly, as you know connected with the profession of a surgeon. Probably the barbers cut the surgeons, and that led to a split. But if you reflect you will see that most exceptional qualities are required by a good barber. Sobriety is indispensable cleanliness, which everyone knows to be nearer to godliness than many people attain, some degree of polish and a pleasing loquacity and an intelligent acquaintance with the topics of the day. People trust their barber more than their lawyer, for would you offer your bared throat to anyone armed with a deadly weapon, unless you had the supremest confidence in him? Surely we can confide the gas-pipes and water-pipes of a town to a man to whom we entrust our own wind-pipes. I protest your barber is a most inestimable profession brother.” “Oh! dry up,” said Storth, “you aren’t in court now. Beaumont, I say again, you get neither profit nor _kudos_ from being in the Council, and it takes up a lot of your time. But that’s a small matter. Do you think, now, it will add to your professional or social status or do you or the office a blessed scintilla of good, to take the chair for that fellow Bradlaugh, as I see you are advertised to do?” “That fellow Bradlaugh, as you are pleased to call him, is worth half-a-dozen such respectabilities as either you or I, Sam. In mere ability as a lawyer he is worth a round dozen of us lumped together. But he is more than that, he is a very fair scholar, though entirely self-educated. He has done more for his brains and with his brains than many do who have had hundreds of pounds spent upon their education by fond parents. He has not only brains but a conscience; he might have earned a fat living as a lawyer or a parson. He has not only a conscience but a character, and a good one, too, and besides all that, he’s the elected member for Northampton, has as much right legally to sit for that borough as Churchill has for Woodstock, and a great deal better right morally.” “The man’s an atheist,” said Storth.