‘He were small and weak, and his chest were bad. That was why he come away from London. His voice were peepy like a chicken calling the old hen. He didn’t drink, and he didn’t smoke, and he didn’t swear, and to say truth there was so many things against him, no one could say which was the wust. He were the fair butt o’ the place; even the women and girls derided him. ‘I was always a wanderer, and soon I goes off again, to Antwerp, and then away to Java. I were three good years older when next I landed on Appledore quay. ’Twas much such a night as t’other, cold and wet and blowy. But the light from the barber’s shop was shining out on the wet stones, and Mr. Harris, who I do believe I hadn’t thought on since I went away, comes into my mind again, all of a sudden. ‘“He’m gone. The place looks quiet enough now,” says I to myself. Then I shoves open the door. ‘’Tis a long, narrow room, with benches at the side. They benches were full o’ men sitting quiet waiting their turn. At the far end I see Mr. Harris shaving away like a good ’un, his bald head and his gold specs shining in the lamplight. I were so astonished I stood still without speaking. Then he says in the peepy little voice I remembered so well, ‘“I will ask one of you gentlemen kindly to shut that door, and keep it shut.” ‘And I’m blest if the most cantankerous chap in the place didn’t get up quite quiet, and shut it without a word. And then I went home. ‘Well, sir, I found Mr. Harris had got to be boss of the village. ’Twas the wonderfullest thing! He was the same little weak man I had fust seen, a surprised-looking creature with his big gold glasses, and his pale face, and his mouth half open, but lor bless you! the whole place bowed down to him. He were Secretary to the Regatta, and Churchwarden, and sang in the choir, and sometimes read the lessons, and when the Vicar put in they peal of bells, with the thing by which you can play times on ’em, it was Mr. Harris who played on ’em all his spare time, till some folks who lived near the church, and didn’t care for music, wished they bells further. ‘I saw what he was for myself a few days after I got home. Me and Tom Jenkyns was passing his shop one fine morning and Mr. Harris, in his white apron and gold specs, was on the quay peering about in the sun. Tom ain’t a beauty when he’s sober, which he weren’t then by no means, so I gets in between ’em. Mr. Harris looks up in his gentle way through his glasses. ‘“Dear me, Mr. Jenkyns,” he says, “I am sorry to see you with such a dirty chin! It wouldn’t do for you to meet a young lady with that chin! Oh, no. You’d better come inside,” and he ’as Tom in the shop and in the chair, and shaves him, and has ’im outside again, before Tom could think where to tell him to go to. Now that was a wonderful thing. Don’t ’ee think so, sir?’ ‘Indeed I do,’ I said, for I knew Mr. Jenkyns pretty well. ‘How on earth did he manage him? How did he work it?’