Happily, on the opposite side of the table, some lying story of a French defeat was started: now, as I had read on the street-corners that French and German Proclamation, calling before the Court Martial any one who had heard war-rumours (disadvantageous, namely), without giving notice of them,—I, as a man not willing ever to forget himself, had nothing more prudent to do in this case, than to withdraw with empty ears, telling none but the landlord why.
It was no improper time; for I had previously determined to have my beard shaven about half-past four, that so, towards five I might present myself with a chin just polished by the razor smoothing-iron, and sleek as wove-paper, without the smallest root-stump of a hair left on it. By way of preparation, like Pitt before Parliamentary debates, I poured a devilish deal of Pontac into my stomach, with true disgust, and contrary to all sanitary rules; not so much for fronting the light stranger Barber, as the Minister and General von Schabacker, with whom I had it in view to exchange perhaps more than one fiery statement.
The common Hotel Barber was ushered in to me; but at first view you noticed in his polygonal zigzag visage, more of a man that would finally go mad, than of one growing wiser. Now, madmen are a class of persons whom I hate incredibly; and nothing can take me to see any madhouse, simply because the first maniac among them may clutch me in his giant fists if he like; and because, owing to infection, I cannot be sure that I shall ever get out again with the sense which I brought in. In a general way, I sit (when once I am lathered) in such a posture on my chair as to keep both my hands (the eyes I fix intently on the barbering countenance) lying clenched along my sides, and pointed directly at the midriff of the
28. It is impossible for me, amid the tendril-forest of allusions (even this again is a tendril-twig), to state and declare on the spot whether all the Courts or Heights, the (Bougouer) Snowline of Europe, have ever been mentioned in my Writings or not; but I could wish for information on the subject, that if not, I may try to do it still.
