r may not be so, but having chambers in Ryder Street and
Alphonse residing within the precincts of St. James's, I would rather
have been carved morally into mincemeat than have robbed such an artist
of his self-expression.

That is how I felt about it in 1914 and in many preceding years, during
which, under the magic spell of Alphonse, the razor fell upon my cheek
like thistledown. Even to be lathered by him was an alluring form of
hypnosis. Alphonse was a Hokusai of barbers, but he was also a true son
of France; and there were Alsace and Lorraine and the arrogance of 1870
still to be accounted for. So Alphonse went, and in his place reigned
Ferdinand.

Ferdinand, what there was of him, was a good fellow. He was an old
fire-eater. He had lost a leg in Algeria and an eye somewhere else, and
he could not comprehend why such trivial matters should disqualify a man
for killing pigs. He was, as I have said, a good fellow, but his methods
of using a razor were mediaeval. However we were not long for one
another, and, as the R.N.V.R. tolerate such things, I grew a beard, an
equable, regulation torpedo beard.

Omitting several super-emotional lifetimes, let us speak of a certain
day not very remote when I stood, bereft of all sea power, at the top of
St. James's Street, considering what was the very best worst thing to
do to a body which was bored with the reaction that follows four years'
strife upon the narrow seas. I fingered my beard meditatively. Yes,
after all there was Alphonse. I had almost forgotten him. I turned my
steps towards his exclusive retreat. I entered in, and behold! there as
of yore, clothed in his samite raiment, stood the incomparable Alphonse.
He had returned. Yet in appearance he was not quite the Alphonse of old.
There was something less resilient about him, something more enduring
had crept into his personality; his elasticity had somehow turned to
bronze. He was slightly grey. Nevertheless he greeted me with a Gallic
warmth that gave refreshment to my jaded spirit.

"But M'sieu would be shaved.... Yes, a beard was permissible in time of
War, but in Peace--pouf! it was barbaric."

I allowed myself to be robed and tucked comfortably into the chair.
Alphonse busied himself with the instruments of his profession.

"Five years ago it was another world, M'sieu," he said, churning a
wooden bowl to mountains of lather. "It is never again the same. The
Marne ... Verdun ... Soissons. If M'sieu permits I