"Better cold lather, barber, than a cold heart. Why that cold sign? Ah, I don't wonder you try to shirk the confession. You feel in your soul how ungenerous a hint is there. And yet, barber, now that I look into your eyes--which somehow speak to me of the mother that must have so often looked into them before me--I dare say, though you may not think it, that the spirit of that notification is not one with your nature. For look now, setting, business views aside, regarding the thing in an abstract light; in short, supposing a case, barber; supposing, I say, you see a stranger, his face accidentally averted, but his visible part very respectable-looking; what now, barber--I put it to your conscience, to your charity--what would be your impression of that man, in a moral point of view? Being in a signal sense a stranger, would you, for that, signally set him down for a knave?" "Certainly not, sir; by no means," cried the barber, humanely resentful. "You would upon the face of him----" "Hold, sir," said the barber, "nothing about the face; you remember, sir, that is out of sight." "I forgot that. Well then, you would, upon the _back_ of him, conclude him to be, not improbably, some worthy sort of person; in short, an honest man: wouldn't you?" "Not unlikely I should, sir." "Well now--don't be so impatient with your brush, barber--suppose that honest man meet you by night in some dark corner of the boat where his face would still remain unseen, asking you to trust him for a shave--how then?" "Wouldn't trust him, sir." "But is not an honest man to be trusted?" "Why--why--yes, sir." "There! don't you see, now?" "See what?" asked the disconcerted barber, rather vexedly. "Why, you stand self-contradicted, barber; don't you?" "No," doggedly. "Barber," gravely, and after a pause of concern, "the enemies of our race have a saying that insincerity is the most universal and inveterate vice of man--the lasting bar to real amelioration, whether of individuals or of the world. Don't you now, barber, by your stubbornness on this occasion, give color to such a calumny?" "Hity-tity!" cried the barber, losing patience, and with it respect; "stubbornness?" Then clattering round the brush in the cup, "Will you be shaved, or won't you?" "Barber, I will be shaved, and with pleasure; but, pray, don't raise your voice that way. Why, now, if you go through life gritting your teeth in that fashion, what a comfortless time you will have." "I take as much comfort in this world as you or any other man," cried the barber, whom the other's sweetness of temper seemed rather to exasperate than soothe.