( 331 ) 

 THE MAN OF TWO LIVES. 



IT has many times been averred by responsible witnesses in the 

 town of Gravelstone, and their testimony has been sanctioned by the 

 conclusive dictum of that mysterious personage commonly termed 

 *' the oldest inhabitant," that fortune never dawned more auspiciously 

 upon the opening prospects of breathing man than when she was 

 pleased to usher in the vigorous commencement of life on the part 

 of Mr. Samuel Singe, the barber of that place. Truth to speak, and 

 gratifying to tell, the earliest efforts, on his own sole account, of that 

 individual in the hair-cutting and chin-shaving line had met with no 

 ordinary encouragement. Even from the first outbreak of his career, 

 when, firm of soul and fixed of purpose, but with a nervous sensibility 

 easily to be accounted for, he caused the name of his respected mas- 

 ter, " Lightly," to be erased from the shop-front, and the more 

 pleasing monosyllable " Singe " to be placed in its stead, his virtuous 

 ardour had been rewarded by fervent and zealous patronage. 



He was permitted instigated, I may say to walk in the same 

 path, aye, to step into the very shoes of the respected and deplored 

 defunct. He was even taken by the hand by Mr. Uppercrust, the 

 mayor (the mayor !) whom mortal thumb and finger had never be- 

 fore taken by the nose. To him was reserved the honour of tucking 

 the first napkin between the cravat and the epiglottis of that municipal 

 and majestic man, and the razor of Singe was the first tried weapon 

 that had ever coursed in rapid but inoffensive semicircles over that 

 benignant countenance. Nor were aldermanic chins less subservient 

 to his brush ; nor did Furlong the surveyor ever present himself unto 

 the world's eye until Singe had assuaged with powder the almost 

 intolerable effulgence of the symmetrical dome which overhung his 

 expansive brow. Our hero was also installed hairdresser in ordinary 

 to Ichneumon the attorney, and superintended monthly the bristly 

 exuberances of that gentleman's multifarious offspring. 



The reader is, however, mistaken if he suppose that the profes- 

 sional avocations of Samuel Singe were exclusively absorbed by an 

 attention to these aristocratical customers. No. His in-door practice 

 was considerable. It admits not of a doubt that on Saturdays not 

 to mention the others/foe days of the week (for Singe was orthodox 

 and eschewed suds on a Sunday), the number of bearded and bacon- 

 fed rustics from the contiguous villages who " went away shorn" from 

 the well-appointed and decent shop of the barber was almost incal- 

 culable. His hours of less peremptory practice, too, were devoted to 

 wig-weaving and peruke-plaiting exercitations, while the restoration 

 of ladies' fronts to their pristine tortuosity employed some portion of 

 that time which the world has consented to set apart for leisure and 

 recreation. 



But although, as I have sufficiently shown, Singe might be consi- 

 dered in every respect a thriving man, and notwithstanding that he 

 '* acquired a prompt alacrity " in furthering his own interests, yet 



