The Greek Barber. 61 



making this noise is as peculiar to the barbers of the East, as cracking a 

 whip is to a French postilion. Having strapped a razor, he removed my 

 cap, and I then thought it high time to enter a remonstrance, saying : 

 that I did not wish to have my head shaved, but simply my hair cut. 

 " I understood you so," said he, " and am going to do it." " But," inter- 

 rupted I, " surely not with a razor, have you not got a " imitating 



the action of a pair of scissors with my fingers. " Do not be afraid," 

 said he ; and a smile of contempt passed over his features as he, without 

 further parley, applied his razor to my devoted head, and scraped there- 

 from a quantity of hair. " There," said he, " if you are not content, I 

 will send to my uncle Theodoree, the tailor, for his shears." I was 

 obliged to submit, though in the full expectation of being scalped at every 

 stroke of his accursed tool. When he pronounced the operation ended, 

 I was not a little surprised to find my hair very decently cut, and myself 

 unhurt. 



He then proceeded to place under my chin a pewter basin, with a large 

 rim cut out to fit the neck j and having washed my chin and cheeks with 

 his fingers, and rubbed them with a piece of hard soap, he removed the 

 basin, and putting his foot on the bench on which I sat, he laid my head 

 gently upon his knee. He went on to shave me, not as our barbers do 

 by drawing the razor towards himself, but by pushing it from him out- 

 wards, pinching the skin up into ridges, and taking only at a stroke just 

 the crown of each ridge, making it not only a tedious, but to roe an 

 excruciating operation, although, on the other hand, a very perfect one, 

 for the face will remain smooth and beardless for a day or two. 

 They seem to cut about eight-arid-forty hours' growth beneath the 

 skin. This ended, he put some question to me ; to which I, having 

 no idea of the consequences, but supposing some matter of course, 

 nodded an assent. He then tucked several towels down my neck and 

 back, and gave me another pewter basin, of the same construction 

 as the first, but much larger. I had before observed a wooden bracket, 

 like an old-fashioned gallows, projecting from the wall, over ray 

 head, though without suspecting its use. Upon this he suspended 

 a pewter pail, having a stop-cock in the bottom. He then pro- 

 duced a large wooden bowl, containing a quantity of soap, and, with 

 a piece of raw silk, made a lather sufficient to have washed the whole 

 population of the island. I saw him deposit this on the bench by his side, 

 and bare his arms to the elbow. I witnessed all this preparation with 

 some little anxiety, and even apprehension ; but encumbered as I was by 

 my position, and his infernal paraphernalia, he had me completely in his 

 power ; and as to remonstrance, he took an effectual method of cutting 

 short any solecisms I might have committed against the dignity of Greek, 

 by turning the stop-cock of the bucket above me, and with the speed of 

 thought down came a torrent of scalding water ! I tried to scream -, the 

 power of utterance was gone. I would have thrown the basin at him, 

 but then my whole body must have been parboiled : I had nothing left 

 but to endure. At last the deluge ceased. Now, thought I, now, thou 

 perfidious barber (though thou wert even the progenitor of Sir Edward 

 himself) ! now will I be revenged of thee : I will dip thee in thy own 

 copper, and hang thee up to dry like a lathered napkin, as a warning to 

 all thy detestable craft how they exercise their atrocities upon confiding 

 Franks. But, alas ! I opened my eyes, glistening with the fire of fury, 



