Through a Glass

"Never saw the like before, sir; must have annoyed you dreadful!" remarked the commiserating barber, as he passed the preparatory scissors round his customer's jaw, mowing the great golden sheaf at one sweep. He spoke of it as though it were a cancer or other painful excrescence, the removal of which would be to the sufferer a boon unspeakable.

Helwyse's face expressed neither anguish nor relief; he presently lost himself in thoughts of his own, only returning to the perception of outside things when the barber asked him whether he, also, had ever attended camp-meeting; the subject being evidently one which had been held forth upon for some time past.

"No?" continued the little man who by long practice had acquired a wonderful power of interpreting silence. "Well, it's a great thing, sir; and a right curious thing is experiencing religion, too! A great blessing I've found it, sir; there's a peace dwells with me, as the minister says, right along all the time now. Does the razor please you, sir? Ah! I was a wild and godless being once, although always reckoned a smart hand with the razor;--Satan never took my cunning hand, as the poet says, away from me. Yes, there was a time when I was how-d' y'-do with all the bloods around the place, and a good business I used to do out of them, too, sir; but religion is a peace there's no understanding, as the Good Book says; and if I don't make all I used to, I save twice as much,--and that's the good of it, sir. Beau-ti-ful chin is yours, sir, I declare!"