“I called to the barber, come shave me boy, do you hear, And I’ll give you sixpence for to spend in ale or beer; Shave me, shave me, barber come shave me, Make me look neat and spruce that Molly may have me.” Sixpence quotha!—it cost me four and sixpence, at the least. When I opened the door, I was so much astonished at the elegance of the apartment, that I drew back, and would have retired, thinking I had made some mistake, when two or three fellows flew out upon me, and began brushing my coat with such impetuous violence, that I could not escape from them; indeed, it was with much ado that I could prevent my ears from being brushed off, by their whizzing brooms. I was as restive, you may depend upon it, as my horse is under a cedar broom; twice they struck me severe blows on the cheek, but always begged pardon, so I could not be offended; and, indeed, I had made up my mind when I left home, not to betray my ignorance of present customs. All this time two small _shavers_ were dusting my boots, and I protest it was with much difficulty I could keep my legs. After considerable suffering on my part, and repeated declarations of my being satisfied with their services, and paying each of them something, (for I saw they expected it,) they desisted. I now expressed a wish to be shaved and trimmed, and was immediately disrobed, and ushered to a high-backed chair, where my head was roughly thrown back, my chin tucked, and the operation of shaving performed in the _twinkling of an ejaculation_. It did not take long to cut my hair and strangle me with cologne water; but what was my surprise, when they were done with me, to find the whole of my occiput as bare as the palm of my hand, and nothing left upon my head but a few straggling locks at the side, time having already stripped naked my forehead. I was sadly vexed, but what could I say? I had voluntarily put myself in their power, and was devoutly glad when I got into the street, that I had escaped alive from their hands. Well, I had now paid four-and-sixpence; I had lost all my hair; my face had been scratched by brooms and lacerated by a razor, and I had learned in exchange, that barbers were different folks now-a-days from what they used to be, and that men were brushed down like horses—rather a bad speculation! I had not been in this world, it is true, “ever since king Pepin was a little boy,” but I was pretty old, and had never been treated so unceremoniously in my life. I had imagined when I entered the house, that I was going into just such a shop as my old friend Kippin used to keep, who received me with the profoundest of bows, and shaved me with a solemnity of manner that suited my temper exactly. No tawdry ornaments hung upon his walls; no mirrors flashed wheresoever you turned; no newspapers lay scattered around; no {734} Helen Jewetts or other engravings caught your eye. His walls were mute as “Tara’s Halls”—a piece of broken looking-glass