To make no elaborate pretence in the matter this
person may definitely admit that he never did reach the place in
question, nor--in spite of a diligent search in which he has
encountered much obloquy--has he yet found any barber sufficiently
well equipped to undertake the detail.
Even more recently I suffered the unmerited rebuke of the superficial
through performing an act of deferential politeness. Learning that the
enlightened and magnanimous sovereign of this country was setting out
on a journey I stationed myself in the forefront of those who stood
before his palace, intending to watch such parts of the procession as
might be fitly witnessed by one of my condition. When these had
passed, and the chariot of the greatest approached, I respectfully
turned my back to the road with a propitiatory gesture, as of one who
did not deem himself worthy even to look upon a being of such majestic
rank and acknowledged excellence. This delicate action, by some
incredible process of mental obliquity, was held by those around to be
a deliberate insult, if not even a preconcerted signal, of open
treachery, and had not a heaven-sent breeze at that moment carried the
hat of a very dignified bystander into the upper branches of an
opportune tree, and successfully turned aside the attention of the
assembly into a most immoderate exhibition of utter loss of gravity, I
should undoubtedly have been publicly tortured, if not actually torn
to pieces.
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