Omaha daily bee., 1884-01-17
BELiEFs OF THE BARRIERS.
pccuiinritics OF Razors and the Eject
ON Their Owners.

"There it goes for tho second time this
week." petulantly calculated a barber in
n downtown tonsorial parlor, as he held
up u razor and looked at it in u puzzled
manner. He stropped the blade and
again applied it to the chin Of the soap
bedaubed man in his chair. The facial
contortions of the man, the rasping sound,
and the look of disgust on the BARRIERS
face plainly showed that all was not right.
He tried several raz RS, but they would
not work. Then he borrowed q razor
from the boss and succeeded in scrapiug
some of the hair from the face of the Gus
toner. Judging from the remarks of the
customer after the operation was per-
formed, he scraped something more than
hair. After the man loft, the barber went
to the boss and said;
"That razor has gone back OH me
again" He spoke US though all hope
had departed.
"That's your own fault" coolly OBJ
served the boss. Didn't | tell you to
put it near the stone when we locked up
last night You can't expect a razor to
stand by you if you neglect to treat it
right"
The barber went back to his chair and
a reporter of The Daily News besought
the boss to tell him something about
razors.
every barber has his pet razor" he
began. "Whenever u beard comes in
that can't be touched by any of the regu.
lar working raaors, the barber takes out
his boX and picks out his ~favorite razor.
The barber believes that that particular
razor will cut any beard, and its previous
performances makes this belief reasona.
BILE. Gradually he begins to respect that
razor, and to devote especial care to it.
When it goes back on him he is lost. He
almost believes that the razor is u thing
of life. Why, l have seen BARRIERS ac-
cuse one another of 'hoodooing' their pet
razors."
SPY February l, perhaps"
~ will be lucky if l get it by next
Fourth of July. And yet 1 called it u
pretty fair order. You can Judge from
this how much money there is in story
writing, even for a man who has had
twenty years experience, and who can
turn out manuscript by the yard on any
subject at any time, precisely as though
his work was mere manual labor"
The sensational press, you say, does
rather better by you"
"Oh, yes. -Four years ago l received
$500 apiece for u number of thirty thous-
andword dime novels The money was
spot cash, and the work was easy. The
matter was mainly Indian stories. With
a good map of the western states and ter.
~ritories and a few standard works on the
red man, / had all the material that was
needed, outside of the furniture in my
own head. But those days are past. The
Indian story will not pay its writer rs
well as a religious story to-day. By the
the way, perhaps you may not know it,
but che good -little-boy style of literature
and the Observation-Disclosures stories are
are mostly turned out of the same work
shop"
"Do you mean that one man very often
writes sensational as well as religious
li~terature?"
"What is the matter with this BARRIERS
razor? / see he is soaking it in water"
said the reporter.
"Cold weather and undue exposure.
The edge of the razor is a very delicate
thing. Aeat and cold affect it. Under
a strong magnifying glass, the edge of the
razor, which has been exposed to the
cold, would seem like a saw. Hot water
throws the little particles back into place
and makes the edge smoth. A sudden
change in the weather always affects the
razors in a barber shop and the tempers
of the BARRIERS"