'Now of beards there be
Such a company,
Of fashions such a throng,
That it is very hard
To treat of the beard,
Tho' it be ne'er so long."
In a general way, only, do we care to call the attention of our friends to the fact that unless they wear their beard of the proper cut, not only do they throw away an important element of good-looks (which often aid a man so much in life), but they leave room for a just doubt about their taste in other matters of deeper moment. A well-shaped whisker has been worth money to many a man. There was Juan de Castro, for example, a sturdy fighter of Portugal in the days of Queen Catherine. He had command of a regiment in India, and did good service there. Once he ran out of money and out of food, so that it seemed as if his troops must disband or starve. But Juan had a resource which no general had ever before thought of. He cut off one of his whiskers, sent it to the city of Goa, and asked the ruler of that place to take it as security for a loan of a thousand pistoles. "I value that whisker," wrote Captain Juan, "at ten times the sum I ask you for, so you need not doubt but that I shall repay you." He got his loan, and what is not less singular to us, who are such strangers to the Spanish pun d'onore, in due time he redeemed his whisker.
