faintest smile on his face to discourage the candidate for
tonsorial honors. The young man looked important, threw his head back,
pursed up his lips, and felt of his chin, on which there was not the
slightest suspicion of a beard visible to the naked eye. Mr.
Fitzherbert Wittleworth would not have been willing to acknowledge that
he had not been shaved for three weeks; but no one could have
discovered the fact without the aid of a powerful microscope.

Mr. Wittleworth spread out his attenuated frame in the barber's chair,
and dropped his head back upon the rest. Andre looked as grave and
serious as though he had been called to operate upon the face of one of
the venerable and dignified bank presidents who frequented the shop. He
was a journeyman barber, and it was his business to shave any one who
sat down in his chair, whether the applicant had a beard or not. If
Andre's voice was soft and musical, his resemblance to the gentler sex
did not end there, for his hand was as silky and delicate, and his
touch as velvety, as though he had been bred in a boudoir.

He adjusted the napkin to the neck of the juvenile customer with the
nicest care, and then, from the force of habit, passed his downy hand
over the face upon which he was to operate, as if to determine whether
it was a hard or a tender skin. Several of the customers smiled and
coughed, and even the half-dozen journeymen were not unmoved by the
spectacle.

"What are you going to do, Fitz?" asked the occupant of the adjoining
chair, who had just straightened himself up to be "brushed off."

"I'm going to have a shave," answered Mr. Wittleworth, as confidently
as though the proceedings were entirely regular.

"What for?"

"To have my beard taken off, of course. What do you shave for?"

"Put on the cream, and let the cat lick it off."

"That's a venerable joke. I dare say the barber did not gap his razor
when he shaved you. I always feel better after I have been shaved,"
added Mr. Wittleworth, as Andre laid a brush full of lather upon his
smooth chin.

Those in the shop chuckled, and some of them were ill-mannered enough
to laugh aloud, at the conceit of the young man who thus announced to
the world that his beard had grown. Even the proprietors of the
extensive shaving saloon looked uncommonly good-natured, though it was
not prudent for them to rebuke the ambition of the prospective
customer.

Andre lathered the face of the juvenile with as much care as tho