“Well, sir; it’s this way.” He tried to tell off the points under discussion upon his fingers; but, missing his aim, he sadly gave up gesticulation, and put his hands in his pockets. “Ye see, sir, life is only once for the living. That’s a square fact on a fine solid foundation. Even the Presbyterians, God forgive them, can’t get round that with any number of testimonials--nor the Methodies can’t leap that obstruction.... Well, that’s so anyway. That’s the sort of statement on which all the churches meet--the sort of statement that don’t strain the bowels of any tax-payin’ householder to grip between his two fists and look at with the two unblinking eyes in his head.... Now, I, Mike Devlin, said to myself--hiccup--said I--why should this whole mortal journey of me be passed in cuttin’ the stray bits of hair off every damned fool whose hair grows? and wid that, up gets Echo on his hind legs in the dirty old shop and answers: why indeed?... Then, by the holy army of martyrs, up comes the trump of doom and starts buglin’ in me ears like the leadin’ trombone in the band of a travellin’ circus: Mike, me boy, says the trump, there’ll be a funeral one day, and the shabby section of the world that lives in your dirty old sooty street will be passing by the ugly corpse of ye, one by one, and they’ll stare at the damn comical old relics of ye, and say: And this man was contint to crawl through life and sneak into his grave clippin’ the hair off the head of any ass every week, rain or sunshine, for a triflin’ and mean remuneration!... And wid that, I scratched me head, and thinks Mike Devlin to himself, thinks he: begod, it’s a queer kind of poetry ye’re livin’, says he; and wid that he up and kicked me destiny in the intestines and drapped the hair-cuttin’.” “When was that, Devlin?” Devlin hiccupped: “It might have been three days ago; and it might have been less; but it seems a godlike fortnight av dreams interspersed wid hiccup and one or two nightmares, Mr. Noll.” “And what are you going to do, Devlin?” “Live,” said the emotional hairdresser splendidly. “Hoho!” said Noll. “I mean to live--to take the stage in the drama of life,” said the barber largely; and he swept his hand towards the pitchy reek of the slumbering universe. “There’s a great hairy soul in me, tearin’ to get out--and it’s above hair-cuttin’. I am moved with the spirit of art.” He hiccupped, apologized, and went on: “I have joined me life with the legitimate drama--I mean to dance the mighty fling of man’s destiny to the tune of a nightly orchestra. I go out to-morrow wid a theatrical company to play the immortal masterpieces of Mr. Sheridan, Doctor Goldsmith, and the Swan of Avon. And, by the gospels, Victoria May Alice goes with me.” Noll whistled. Devlin scowled: