n the wonted and sensible
order of things--of the barber of the boat, whose quarters, under a
smoking-saloon, and over against a bar-room, was next door but two to
the captain's office. As if the long, wide, covered deck, hereabouts
built up on both sides with shop-like windowed spaces, were some
Constantinople arcade or bazaar, where more than one trade is plied,
this river barber, aproned and slippered, but rather crusty-looking for
the moment, it may be from being newly out of bed, was throwing open
his premises for the day, and suitably arranging the exterior. With
business-like dispatch, having rattled down his shutters, and at a
palm-tree angle set out in the iron fixture his little ornamental pole,
and this without overmuch tenderness for the elbows and toes of the
crowd, he concluded his operations by bidding people stand still more
aside, when, jumping on a stool, he hung over his door, on the customary
nail, a gaudy sort of illuminated pasteboard sign, skillfully executed
by himself, gilt with the likeness of a razor elbowed in readiness to
shave, and also, for the public benefit, with two words not unfrequently
seen ashore gracing other shops besides barbers':--

"NO TRUST."

An inscription which, though in a sense not less intrusive than the
contrasted ones of the stranger, did not, as it seemed, provoke any
corresponding derision or surprise, much less indignation; and still
less, to all appearances, did it gain for the inscriber the repute of
being a simpleton.

Meanwhile, he with the slate continued moving slowly up and down, not
without causing some stares to change into jeers, and some jeers into
pushes, and some pushes into punches; when suddenly, in one of his
turns, he was hailed from behind by two porters carrying a large trunk;
but as the summons, though loud, was without effect, they accidentally
or otherwise swung their burden against him, nearly overthrowing him;
when, by a quick start, a peculiar inarticulate moan, and a pathetic
telegraphing of his fingers, he involuntarily betrayed that he was not
alone dumb, but also deaf.

Presently, as if not wholly unaffected by his reception thus far, he
went forward, seating himself in a retired spot on the forecastle, nigh
the foot of a ladder there leading to a deck above, up and down which
ladder some of the boatmen, in discharge of their duties, were
occasionally going.

From his betaking himself to this humble quarter, it was evident that,
a