o cry out, 'Stop! Stop! Don't cut
it all off!

'Oh, barber, spare that hair!
Leave some upon my brow!
For months it's sheltered me!
And I'll protect it now!

'Oh, please! P-l-e-a-s-e!--'

These exclamations annoy a barber, rouse a demon of fury in him. He
reaches for a machine called 'clippers.' Tell him how to cut hair, will
you! A little more and he'll shave your head--and not only half-way
either, like the Norman soldiery at the time of the Conquest! Even if
you are able to restrain this impulse, clenching your bib in your hands
and perhaps dropping or tearing the _Illustrated London News_, the
mirror gives you strange, morbid reflections. You recognize your face,
but your head seems somehow separate, balanced on a kind of polka-dotted
mountain with two hands holding the _Illustrated London News_. You are
afraid momentarily that the barber will lift it off and go away with it.

Then is the time to read furiously the weekly contribution of G. K.
Chesterton. But your mind reverts to a story you have been reading about
how the Tulululu islanders, a savage but ingenious people, preserve the
heads of their enemies so that the faces are much smaller but otherwise
quite recognizable. You find yourself looking keenly at the barber to
discover any possible trace of Tulululu ancestry.

And what is he going to get now? A _kris_? No, a paint-brush. Is he
going to paint you? And if so--what color? The question of color
becomes strangely important, as if it made any real difference. Green?
Red? Purple? Blue? No, he uses the brush dry, tickling your forehead,
tickling your ears, tickling your nose, tickling you under the chin and
down the back of your neck. After the serious business of the haircut, a
barber must have some relaxation.

There is one point on which you are independent: you will not have the
bay rum; you are a teetotaller. You say so in a weak voice which
nevertheless has some adamantine quality that impresses him. He humors
you; or perhaps your preference appeals to his sense of business
economy.

He takes off your bib.

From a row of chairs a man leaps to his feet, anxious to give _his_ head
to the barber. A boy hastily sweeps up the hair that was yours--already
as remote from you as if it had belonged to the man who is always
waiting, and whose name is Next. Oh, it is horrible--horrible--horrible!

OH, SHINING SHOES!

In a democracy it is fitting that a man should sit on a throne t