His relations claimed his shop and his implements, even to an old, worn-out shaving-brush, which would have rubbed the skin off a rhinoceros; but the business remained with me. I took the shop next door, stocked it, and beautified it, with the money I had saved, and was shaving, powdering, and pomatuming from morning till night. Most unluckily, a Spanish grandee, who passed a winter in Naples, placed his head and chin under the immediate superintendence of Carlo Carlini. I was soon taken into great favour; and, as this nobleman was about to return to his own country in the spring, he exerted all his eloquence to persuade me that my talents were quite thrown away in the city of Naples. Madrid, he said--Madrid was the only fitting theatre for the display of my genius. It was the Elysium of barbers, where I was certain to find myself completely happy. "He offered even to take me in his own suite, defraying all my expenses by the way; and he promised that I should shave every friend he had in the world, and powder and perfume all his mistresses, who were many. In an evil hour I yielded. Off we set for Madrid, and very well did my Spanish patron keep his word till we reached that city. I fared sumptuously along the road; and, the system of favouritism being universal in Spain, I was considered his highness's favourite, and treated accordingly; but, unfortunately, after our arrival in Madrid, wars and rumours of wars broke out very soon, and the duke was prevented from carrying out his views in my favour by the strong hand of death, which seized him just as I had established myself in the Spanish capital, and was obtaining a little of the promised custom. My days of prosperity were now at an end. My little capital gradually diminished; my patients did not increase; my stock of smart clothing wore out, and six pairs of while silk stockings--absolute necessaries to a Spanish barber--were reduced to three. As the very utmost neatness and cleanliness are required in that country, you may easily suppose that my silk stockings made frequent visits to the wash-tub; and my _lavandera_, who was the most punctual of women, had the strictest injunctions to return that indispensable part of my apparel at a certain hour on the day after she had received them. She was, be it remarked, a very pretty woman, and had captivated the heart of one of the royal guard, whom I not unfrequently saw at her house, and found him an exceedingly amiable, good-humoured young man. One morning, as my good fortune would have it, my silk stockings did not return. The preceding day had been rainy; and, although it does not often rain in Madrid, yet when it does there is plenty of mud in the streets. A prince and a duke were waiting to be shaved; and after waiting in a state of acute anguish for half-an-hour, I was obliged to sally forth in my dirty stockings. I lost two of my best customers; but fortune and misfortune are always intimately mingled in the affairs of this life.