The barber's chair; and, The hedgehog letters

by Douglas William Jerrold

Blanchard Jerrold.

Reform Club, June 1874.

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.

Nightflit. 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; not even the pictures of ’em in the newspapers, with the murderer’s hair in full curl, and a dresscoat on him: as if blood, like prime Twankay, was to be recommended to the use of families.