South-eastern Independent. (McConnelsville, Ohio) 1871-1871, 1871-08-04
About BARRIERS.
BY MARK

ences Id barber shops afterWard till the
end of his days. l got shaved this morn
ing as usual. A man approached the door
from Jones street as l approached it from
Mains thing that always happens. 1
hurried up, but it was of no use; he en-
tered the door one little step ahead of me,
and l followed in on his heels and saw
him take the only vacant chair, the one
presided over by the best barber. 1t al
ways happens so. l sat down, hoping
that / might fall heir to the chair belong
ing to the better of the remaining two bar
bers, for he had already begun combing his
mans hair, while his comrade was not yet
quite done rubbing up and oiling his
customers locks. I watched the proba-
bilities with strong interest. When l saw
that Nc. 2 was gaining on No. l, my in
terest grew to solicitude. When No. 1
stopped a moment to make change on q
bath ticket for a newcomer, and lost
ground in the race, my solicitude rose to
anxiety. When No. / caught up again,
and both he and his comrade were pulling
the towels away and brushing the powder
from their customers cheeks, and it was
about an even thing which one would say
"Nextr' first, my very breath stood still
with the suspense. But when, at the final
eliminating moment, No. 1 stopped to
pass a comb a couple of times through
his customers eyebrows, 1 saw that he
had lost the race by a single instant. and |
rose indignant and quilted the chop, to
keep from falling into the hands of No. 2;
for l have none of that enviable frmness
that enables a man to look calmly into the
eyes of a waiting barber and tell him he
will wait for his fellow-barber's chair. ]
stayed out fifteen minutes, and then went
back, hoping for better luck. OF course
all the chairs were occupied now, and
-four men sat waiting, silent, ~unsociable,
distraught, and looking bored, as men
always do who are awaiting their turn in a
BARRIERS shop. / sat down in one of the
iron-armed compartments of an old sofa,
and put in the time for q while, reading
the framed advertisements of all sorts of
quack nostroms for dyeing and coloring
the hair. Then l read the greasy names
on the private bay rum bottles; read the
names and noted the numbers on the pri-
yate shaving cups in the pigeon-holes
studied the stained and damaged cheap
prints on the walls, of battles, early Presi-
dents, and ~voluptuous, recumbent ~sultanas,
and the tiresome and everlasting young
girl putting her grandfather's spectacles
IN execrated in my heart the cheerful
canary and the distracting parrot that few
barb r shops are without. Finally, l
searched out the least dilaDidated of the
LIST yer's illustrated papers that Uttered
the foul comfortable, and conned their un-
UNSUITABLE misrepresentation of old forgot
ten events. At last my turn came. A
voice said Next" and 1 surrendered to
NO. 2, of course. 1t always happens so.
I said, meekly, that l was in a
hurry, and it affected him as strong
" as if he had never heard il. He showed
up my head and put a napkin un.
der it. He ploughed his fingers INTO my
collar and fixed a towel there. He ex-
plored my hair with his claws and sug-
gest5d that it needed trimming. 1 said L
did not want it trimmed He explored
again and said it was pretty long for the
present style-better have a little taken
off; it needed it behind, especially. l said
I had had it cut only a week before. He
yearned over it refectively a moment, and
then asked, with a disparaging manner,
who cut it. l came back at him promptly
with a "You 6idI" l had him there.
Then he fell to stirring up his lather and
regarding himself in the glass, stopping
now and then to get close and examine his
chin critically " torture a pimple. Then
he lathered n side ofmy face thoroughly,
and was about to lather the other, when a
dog fight attracted his attention, and he
ran to the window and stayed and saw it
out, losing two shiFiings on the result in
bets with the other BARRIERS, a thing
which gave me great satisfaction.
He finished lathering, meantime
getting the brush into my mouth only
twice, and then began to rub in the suds
with his hand and as he now had his
head turned, discussing the dog-fght with
the other BARRIERS, he naturally shoveled
considerable lather into my mouth with
out knowing it, but l did. He now began
to sharpen his razor on an old suspender,
and was delayed a good deal on account of
a controversy about a cheap masquerade
ball he had figured at the night before, in
red cambria and bogus ermine, Is some
kind of a king. He was so gratified with
being chaffed about some damsel whom he
had smitten with his charms, that he used
every means to continue the controversy,
by pretending to be annoyed at the chaf-
ings of his fellows. This matter begot
more s~urveyings of himself in the glass,
and he put down his razor and brushed
his hair with elaborate care, plastering an
inverted arch of it down on his forehead,
accomplishing OIL dOO01dSC PdAb OCuAuAg
and brushing the two wings forward over
his ears with nice exactness. 1t the mean
time the lather was drying on my face, and
apparently eating into my vitals. Now
he began to shave, digging his fingers into
my c~ountenance to stretch the skin, max
ing q handle of my nose now and then,
bundling and tumbling my head this way
and that, as convenience in shaving de-
manded, and "hawking" and expectorating
pleasantly all the while. As long as he
on the toughsides of my face l did not
but when he began to rake, and
and tug at my chin, the tears came.
did not mind his getting so close down
to me; l did not mind his garlic, because
all BARRIERS eat garlic, 1 suppose; but there
an added something that made me fear
he was decaying inwardly while still
alf4e, and this gave me much concern. He
now put his finger into my mouth to assist
him In shaving the corners of my upper
lip, and it was by this bit of circumstantial
evidence that l discovered that a part OF
his duties in the shop wa TO clean the
kerosene lamps. l had often wondered in
an indolent way whether the BARRIERS did
that, or whether it was the boss. About
time l was amusing myself trying to
guess where he would be most likely to cut
me this time, but he got ahead of me and
sliced me on the end of the chin before 1
had got my mind made up. He Immediately
sharpened his razor-he might have done it
before. I do not like a close shave, and
would not let him go over me a second
lime. 1 tried to get him to put up his IA
zor, dreading that he would make for the
side of my chin, my pet tender spot, a
place which a razor cannot touch twice
making trouble. But he said he
only wanted TO just smooth off one little
roughness, and in that same moment he
his razor along the forbidden
and the dreaded pimple-signs of a
close shave rose up smarting and answered
the call. Now he soaked his towel in
bay rum, and slapped it all over my face
slapped it over as if a human
being ever yet washed his face in that
way. Then he dried it by slspping with
the dry part of the towel, as if a human
being ever dried his face in such a fashion /;
but a barber seldom rubs you like a Chris
ian. Next he poked bay rum into the
cut place with his towel, then choked the
wound with powdered starch, then soaked
t with bay rum again, and would have
gone on soaking and powdering it for
svermore, no doubt, if l had not rebelled
md begged off. He powdered my whole
lace now, ~strightened me up and began