164 MELODY AND THE BARBER, 



able glee as well as excitement my friends ^proposed 

 this match as a matter of course ; but I said that, if it 

 was all the same to them, it would be infinitely more 

 agreeable to me, and better for my horses, not to give them 

 any additional work, and therefore the match must be off. 

 They received this staid announcement very well, and we 

 parted excellent friends. 



While at this hotel I had my hair cut, to make it fitter 

 for the dusty plains, and when undergoing the operation 

 from as able and sable an artificer as ever I saw, one of 

 his assistants, also a youth of colour, took a guitar and 

 sung a plaintive ballad, with as nice a voice and as good 

 taste as ever I heard united. I was so pleased with him 

 that I offered to take him as my minstrel and cook 

 (rather opposite appointments), and he was very will 

 ing to come, but on consultation with his friends he 

 was prevented. I take it, if he had absented himself, he 

 would have broken up a trio of negro melodists. Nothing 

 could be cleaner or more recherche than this barber's shop, 

 contained as it was in a spacious apartment within the 

 hotel, its walls decorated with pictures of slightly question 

 able propriety, as to which I seriously apostrophised the 

 sable operator, much to his amusement and that of his two 

 assistants. I insisted on my hair being cut much shorter, 

 but in its usual fashion, while he struggled hard to clip it 

 in a new one, when, as he was inclined to be unruly, I 

 solemnly assured him that if he turned me out in any new 

 fashion, nothing on earth should prevent my hitting him 

 on the string of his apron, and leaving him doubled up 

 until my return from the prairies. Under this threat he 

 made just so much change as would, and did, take a month 

 to put right again ; but he was not doubled up, because I 

 did not discover the aggression until the next morning. 



