To-day I got shaved at a barber-shop, where I begged the operator to kill me and put me out of my misery.
I have been accustomed to gentle care and thoughtfulness at home, and my barber at Laramie handles me with the utmost tenderness. I was, therefore, poorly prepared to meet the man who this morning filled my soul with woe.
I know that I have not deserved this, for while others have berated the poor barber and swore about his bad breath and never-ending clatter and his general heartlessness, I have never said anything that was not filled with child-like trust and hearty good will toward him.
I have called the attention of the public to the fact that sometimes customers had bad breath and were restless and mean while being operated on, and then when they are all fixed up nicely, they put their hats on and light a cigar and hold up their finger to the weary barber and tell him that they will see him more subsequently.
Now, however, I feel differently.
This barber no doubt had never heard of me. He no doubt thought I was an ordinary plug who didn't know anything about luxury.
I shall mark a copy of this paper and send it to him.
Then while he is reading it I will steal up behind him with a pick handle and kill him. I want him to be reading this when I kill him, because it will assist the coroner in arriving at the immediate cause of his death.
The first whiff I took of this man's breath, I knew that he was rum's maniac.
He had the Jim James in an advanced stage. Now, I don't object to being shaved by a barber who is socially drunk, but when the mad glitter of the maniac is in his eye and I can see that he is debating the question of whether he will cut my head off and let it drop over the back of the chair or choke me to death with a lather brush, it makes me nervous and fidgetty.