392 LIEUT.-COL. D. C. PHILLOTT- 



tell him to remove this sheet as I do not want my head shaved, my wife may overhear 

 and send me to water the sheep. I'd better hold my tongue." The barber shaved the 

 Haji's head and then took out his scissors to trim his beard. Two men began to quar- 

 rel in a corner away from the doorway, and the barber's attention was distracted : his 

 scissors and hands worked mechanically while his attention was absorbed in the dispute. 

 When he again turned his attention to his work, he saw that he had quite clipped off 

 one side of the Haji's beard. He saw it was impossible to lengthen the shortened 

 hairs by pulling at them with the tweezers, so he just snipped off the other side. He 

 saw that the Haji was completely disfigured but that he still didn't talk. The barber 

 then applied water [ to the beard and shaved him clean. Next he took up a bit of char- 

 coal, rubbed it on the brick bench to give it a point, and planted three beauty patches 2 

 on the Haji's face and handed him the mirror. The Haji looked at himself in the glass 

 and saw that the barber had done his job. He said to himself, " If I move heaven and 

 earth, 3 my beard won't be restored ; and if I talk with this barber my wife may be 

 hidden in a corner and overhear me, and order me to go and water the sheep. I'd 

 better say nothing." Accordingly he returned the mirror to the barber.* The barber 

 said, " Pay me." He got no answer. He then said to himself, "Certainly this man 

 is dumb ; he has no tongue : I'll go into the house and tell his wife I've shaved her 

 man and get my pay." He entered and called out, " Owner of the house," 5 but got no 

 answer. He entered the room and looked round and saw about five hundred tumans 

 worth of jewellery hanging on a peg. " I cannot do better," he said, " than take this 

 and be off." So he took up the things and poured them into his barber's sheet and 

 went out again by the door. The Haji thinking the barber had firewood or something 

 of the sort in the sheet, said nothing, for he feared his wife might be in hiding and 

 might overhear and cry out, ' You spoke first ; go off and water the sheep." As soon 

 as the barber had departed, the wife returned from her neighbour's house and saw (as 

 she imagined) a woman in man's apparel sitting in the doorway. Drawing near she 

 recognised her own husband, beardless and bearing three beauty moles on his face. 

 She fell a-laughing and exclaimed, ' Husband, who has put you in this guise ? " The 

 man sprang up laughing, and began to skip and clap his hands, and exclaimed, " You 

 spoke first ; go and water the sheep." The woman saw her husband was busy clapping 

 his hands and that he paid no attention to her. So she went into the house and 

 entered the room, and saw that her jewellery had gone. With pale face and streaming 

 eyes she ran to her husband and said, " Oh husband ! I'll water the sheep but tell 

 me who has carried off the jewellery ? " He answered, " When you went out I came 

 and sat myself in the doorway. A barber came and made me like this.. He went into 

 the house : he has carried off your jewellery. I thought he was carrying off bits of wood 



1 / 'ide note 6, page 409. 



2 Ladies manufacture these patches from the soot of olive or castor oil, and then apply them with a bodkin. 



3 Lit. " If I stitch the earth and the sky.'' 



* Returning the mirror is the customary sign that operations are finished and that the customer has no improvement to sug- 

 gest. 



f> A usual cry to inform any inmate that someone is at the door. The barber of course knew that the owner was the man outside, 



