“Weel,” cried Nanse, half rising to go ben the house, “I’ll sit nae langer to hear ye gabbling nonsense like a magpie. Mak’ Benjie what ye like; but ye’ll mak’ me greet the een out o’ my head.”
“Hooly and fairly,” said I; “Nanse, sit still like a woman, and hear me out;” so, giving her a pat on the
shouther, she sat her ways down, and I resumed my discourse.
“Ye’ve heard, gudewife, from Benjie’s own mouth, that he has made up his mind to follow out the trade of a gentleman;—who has put such outrageous notions in his head I’m sure I’ll not pretend to guess at. Having never myself been above daily bread, and constant work—when I could get it—I dare not presume to speak from experience: but this I can say, from having some acquaintances in the line, that, of all easy lives, commend me to that of a gentleman’s gentleman. It’s true he’s caa’d a flunky, which does not sound quite the thing; but what of that? what’s in a name? pugh! it does not signify a bawbee—no, nor that pinch of snuff: for, if we descend to particulars, we’re all flunkies together, except his Majesty on the throne.—Then William Pitt is his flunky—and half the house of Commons are his flunkies, doing what he bids them, right or wrong, and no daring to disobey orders, not for the hair in their heads—then the Earl waits on my Lord Duke—Sir Something waits on my Lord Somebody—and his tenant, Mr So-and-so, waits on him—and Mr So-and-so has his butler—and the butler has his flunky—and the shoeblack brushes the flunky’s jacket—and so on. We all hang at one another’s tails like a rope of ingans—so ye observe, that any such objection in the sight of a philosopher like our Benjie, would not weigh a straw’s weight.
“Then consider, for a moment—just consider, gudewife—what company a flunky is every day taken up with, standing behind the chairs, and helping to clean plates and porter; and the manners he cannot help learning, if he is in the smallest gleg in the uptake, so that, when out of livery, it is the toss up of a halfpenny whether ye find out the difference between the man and the master. He learns, in fact, everything. He learns French—he learns dancing in all its branches—he learns how to give boots the finishing polish—he learns how to play at cards, as if he had been born and bred an Earl—he learns, from pouring the bottles, the names of every wine brewed abroad—he learns how to brush a coat, so that, after six months’ tear and wear, one without spectacles would imagine it had only gotten the finishing stitch on the Saturday night before; and he learns to play on the flute, and the spinnet, and the piano, and the fiddle, and the bagpipes; and to sing all manner of songs, and to skirl, full gallop, with such a pith and birr, that though he was to lose his precious eyesight with the small-pox, or a flash of forked lightning, or fall down a three-story stair dead drunk, smash his legs to such a degree that both of them required to be cut off, above the knees, half an hour after, so far all right and well—for he could just tear off his shoulder-knot, and make a perfect fortune—in the one case, in being led from door to door by a ragged laddie, with a string at the button-hole, playing
‘Ower the Border,’ ‘The Hen’s March,’ ‘Donald M’Donald,’ ‘Jenny Nettles,’ and such like grand tunes, on the clarinet; or, in the other case, being drawn from town to town, and from door to door, on a hurdle, like a lord, harnessed to four dogs of all colours, at the rate of two miles in the hour, exclusive of stoppages.—What say ye, gudewife?”
Nanse gave a mournful look, as if she was frighted I had grown demented, and only said, “Tak’ your ain way, gudeman; ye’se get your ain way for me, I fancy.”
Seeing her in this Christian state of resignation, I determined at once to hit the nail on the head, and put an end to the whole business as I intended. “Now, Nanse,” quo’ I, “to come to close quarters with ye, tell me candidly and seriously what ye think of a barber? Every one must allow it’s a canny and cozy trade.”
“A barber that shaves beards!” said Nanse. “’Od Mansie, ye’re surely gaun gyte. Ye’re surely joking me all the time?”
“Joking!” answered I, smoothing down my chin, which was gey an’ rough—“Joking here or joking there, I should not think the settling of an only bairn in an honourable way of doing for all the days of his natural life, is any joking business. Ye dinna ken what ye’re saying, woman. Barbers! i’fegs, to turn up your nose at barbers! did ever living hear such nonsense! But to be sure, one can blame nobody if