THE LAST DAYS OF AN OLD SAILOR; OR, "BUTTER YOUR SHIRT! SING TANTARA-BOBUS, MAKE SHIFT!" 159 DOROTHY PYECROFT'S PREACHING; OR, "CHARITY BEGINS AT HOME" 177 THE MINISTER OF MERCY 189 "MERRIE ENGLAND"—NO MORE! 201 SETH THOMPSON, THE STOCKINGER; OR, "WHEN THINGS ARE AT THE WORST, THEY BEGIN TO MEND" 218 SAM SIMKINS, THE RUN-AWAY; OR, VILLAINY AS A REFUGE FROM THE TORTURES OF SOUR-GODLINESS 235 KUCKY SARSON, THE BARBER; OR, THE DISCIPLE OF EQUALITY. Once upon a time—and that was when "French principles," as they were called, were beginning to spread in England, and here and there one began to profess admiration of the new republic,—there lived in the little town of Caistor, in North Lincolnshire, a notable barber of the name of Habakkuk Sarson,—but "Kucky" was the name by which he was familiarly known; for Lincolnshire folk are a plain folk, and don't like, nor ever did, to trouble themselves with uttering long cramp names. It would be difficult to say how it was exactly, but somehow or other, in spite of the alarm which landowners and tenantry alike felt at the broaching of Jacobinism,"—that _terror terrorum_ to the squirearchy and farmers,—Kucky Sarson contrived to keep a fair share of custom in the matter of clipping hair and scraping beards. Scarcely an hour of the day but Kucky had a customer; or if customers scanted, he was sure to have company for gossip. Perhaps it was chiefly owing to the frank-heartedness and real courtesy of manner which the barber mingled with his earnest speech—for he was a very great talker, and a good one too,—that he was respected by almost all who knew him, notwithstanding his open profession of the principles of "equality." Indeed, it was a maxim of Kucky Sarson, that, "if you believed all men to be equal, you ought to treat every man like a gentleman." "That is the especial hinderance to the spread of first principles, sir," said Kucky to a customer one day. "Democrats foolishly imagine, sir, that democracy consists in barking like a bull-dog, or growling like a bear, at every man they meet; when, the fact is, that that is just the way to repel a sensible man from both yourself and your principles. Don't you think so, sir?" Kucky's customer would have answered, but Kucky held him at that moment by the nose, and was applying a keen razor to his upper lip. The earnest shaver did not think of this, but supposed, since his customer was a stranger, that he was either modest or unacquainted with politics; and, in the latter case, Kucky was too true an enthusiast to omit the opportunity of trying to make a convert—so he resumed, after clearing his throat with a loud "a-hem!"