THE BARBER'S CHAIR.

CHAPTER I.

SCENE.-A Barber's Shop in Seven Dials. NUTTS (the Barber) shaving NOSEBAG. PUCKER, BLEAK, TICKLE, SLOWGOE, NIGHTFLIT, LIMPY, and other customers, come in and go out.

IGHTFLIT. Any news, Mr Nutts? Nothin'
in the paper?

Nutts. Nothing.

Nightflit. Well, I 'm blest if, according to you, there ever is. If an earthquake was to swallow up London to-morrow, you'd say, "There's nothin' in the paper only the earthquake."

Nutts. The fact is, Mr Nightflit, I've had so much news in my time, I've lost the flavour of it. 'Couldn't relish anything weaker than a battle of Waterloo now. Even murders don't move me. No; X not even the pictures of 'em in the newspapers, with the murderer's hair in full curl, and a dress

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coat on him as if blood, like prime Twankay, was to be recommended to the use of families.

Tickle. There you go agin, Nutts: always biting at human natur. It's only that we 're used to you, else I don't know who'd trust you to shave him. Slowgoe. Tell me-Is it true what I have heard? Are the Whigs really in?

Nutts. In! Been in so long that they're half out by this time. As you're always so long after everybody else, I wonder you aint in with 'em.

Bleak. Come now! I was born a Whig, and won't stand it. In the battle of Constitution aren't the Whigs always the foremost?

Nutts. Why, as in other battles, that sometimes depends upon how many are pushing 'em behind. Tickle. There's another bite! Why, Nutts, you don't believe good of nobody. What a cannibal you are! It's my belief you'd live on human

arts.

Nutts. Why not? It's what half the world lives upon. Whigs and Tories. Tell you what; you see them two cats. One of them I call Whig, and t' other Tory; they are so like the two-legged ones. You see Whig there, a-wiping his whiskers. Well, if he in the night kills the smallest mouse that ever squeaked, what a clatter he does kick up! He keeps my wife and me awake for hours; and sometimes-now this is so like Whig-to catch a

mouse not worth a fardin', he'll bring down a row of plates or a teapot or a punch-bowl worth halfa-guinea. And in the morning when he shows us the measly little mouse, doesn't he put up his back and purr as loud as a bagpipe, and walk in and out my legs, for all the world as if the mouse was a dead rhinoceros. Doesn't he make the most of a mouse, that's hardly worth lifting with a pair of tongs and throwing in the gutter? Well, that's Whig all over. Now there's Tory lying all along the hearth, and looking as innocent as though you might shut him up in a dairy with nothin' but his word and honour. Well, when he kills a mouse, he makes hardly any noise about it. But this I will say, he's a little greedier than Whig; he'll eat the varmint up, tail and all. No conscience for known him make

the matter. Bless you, I've

away with rats that he must have lived in the same house with for years.

Bleak. Well, I hate a man that has no party. Every man that is a man ought to have a side.

Nutts. Then I'm not a man; for I'm all round like a ninepin. That will do, Mr Nosebag. Now, Mr Slowgoe, I believe you are next. (SLOWGOE

takes the chair.)

Slowgoe. Is it true what I have heard, that the Duke of Wellington (a great man the Duke; only Catholic 'Mancipation is a little spick upon him)

is it true that the Duke's to have a 'questrian statue on the Hyde Park arch?

Tickle. Why, it was true, only the cab and bus men have petitioned Parliament against it. They said it was such bad taste 'twould frighten their horses. Slowgoe. Shouldn't wonder. And what's become of it?

Tickle. Why, it's been at livery in the Harrow Road, eating its head off, these two months. Sent up the iron trade wonderful. Tenpenny nails are

worth a shilling now.

Slowgoe. Dear me, how trade fluctuates! And what will Government do with it?

Tickle. Why, Mr Hume's going to cut down the army estimates going to reduce 'em-our Life Guardsmen; one of the two that always stands at the Horse Guards; and vote the statue of the Duke there instead. Next to being on the top of a arch, the best thing, they say, is to be under it. Besides, there's economy. For Mr Hume has summed it up; and in two hundred years, five weeks, two days, and three hours, the statue - bought at cost price, for the horse is going to the dogs-will be cheaper by five and twopence than a Life-Guardsman's pay for the same time.

Slowgoe. The Duke's a great man, and it's my opinion

Nutts. Never have an opinion when you're being shaved. If you whobble your tongue about in that Sorry to do it; but can't

way, I shall nick you. wait for your opinion.

Have a family, and must go on with my business. Anything doing at the playhouses, Mr Nosebag?

Nosebag. Well, I don't know; not much. I go on sticking their bills in course, as a matter of business; but I never goes. Fash'nable hours

for now I always teas at seven-won't let me. As say, I stick their posters, but I haven't the pride in 'em I used to have.

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Tickle. How's that, Nosey?

Nosebag. Why, seriously, they have so much gammon. I've stuck "Overflowing Houses" so often, I wonder I haven't been washed off my feet. And then the "Tremendous Hits" I've contin❜ally had in my eye-Oh, for a lover of the real drama. -you don't know my feelings!

Nutts. The actors do certainly bang away in large type now.

Nosebag. And the worst of it is, Mr Nutts, there seems a fate in it; for the bigger the type the smaller the player. I could show you a playbill with Mr Garrick's name in it not the eighth of an inch. And now, if you want to measure on the wall "Mr Snooks as Hamlet," why, you must take a three-foot rule to do it. Don't talk on it. The