An hour before the captain’s dinner was ready, the much envied suit was brought aft, and duly displayed on Mr Pigtop’s chest. The ward-room officers, or at least those of them with whom he could take that liberty, were invited out to view it. It was pronounced, for ship-tailoring, excellent.
Pigtop’s elation was great. So was Josh Daunton’s; but all in a quiet, submissive way. Our envy was proportionate. Josh was an excellent barber, and he volunteered to shave the happy diner-out—the offer was accepted. Then came the turn of fate—then commenced the long series of the poor mate’s miseries. It was no fault of Daunton’s, certainly—but all the razors were like saws. The blood came out over the black visage of Mr Pigtop; but the hair stayed most pertinaciously on. The sufferer swore—how horribly he swore! The time was fast elapsing. After a most tremendous oath from the sufferer, which would have almost split an oak plank, Joshua said, in his lowly and insinuating voice, “Mr Pigtop, pray do—do, do, sir, try the razors yourself. My heart bleeds, sir, more than your face—do try, sir, for I think the captain’s servant is now coming down the hatchway to tell you dinner is ready.”
In despair, the hungry depilator seized the razors: and, being exasperated with hurry, he made a worse job of it than Joshua. Where Josh had made notches, Pigtop made gashes. The ship’s barber was then sent for, and he positively refused to go over the bloody surface.
But Joshua Daunton was the true friend, the friend in need. With Mr Pigtop’s permission, he would go and borrow one of Dr Thompson’s razors. The offer was gratefully accepted. In the meantime, dinner was actually announced. It is just about as wise to attempt to keep the hungry tiger from his newly-slaughtered prey, as for a mid to make the captain of a man-of-war wait dinner. Reud did not wait.
However, the fresh razor did its work admirably, in the adroit hand of Joshua. The hitherto intractable beard flew off rapidly, and Joshua’s tongue moved more glibly even than his razor. Barbers in the act of office have, like the House of Commons, the privilege of speech. They are not amenable afterwards for what they say. In the act they are omnipotent, for who would quarrel with a man who is slipping a razor over your carotid artery? Not, certainly, Mr Pigtop. Thus spoke Joshua, amid the eloquent flourishes of his instrument:—
“Mr Pigtop, I’ve a great respect for you—a very great respect indeed, sir. If you have not been a good friend to me yet, you will—I know it, sir; you are not like the other flighty young gentlemen. I have a respect for years, sir—a great respect for years, and honour a middle-aged gentleman. Indeed, sir, it must be a great condescension in you to permit yourself to be only a master’s—mate of a frigate, seeing that you are quite an elderly gentleman—”
“Da—!”
“There!—that was very imprudent indeed, sir, of you to open your mouth. It was not my fault, you know, that the brush went into it: indeed, some people like the taste of soapsuds—wholesome, I assure you—very. A stubble of your growth, sir, always requires a double lathering—don’t speak. Oh, sir, you are a happy man—exceeding. Your face will be as smooth as a man’s borrowing money. You, boy, just run up the after-hatchway, and tell the captain’s steward that Mr Pigtop will be in the cabin in the flourish of a razor, or before a white horse can turn grey. Permit me to take you by the nose; the true handle of the face, sir: it gives the man, as it were, a sort of a command, sir, of the whole head; he can box the compass with it. Happy indeed you are, sir, and much to be envied. There was one of the captain’s turtles killed yesterday—Jumbo is a cook, a most excellent cook—a spoonful of the soup to-day will be worth a king’s ransom—a peck of March dust! pooh!—I wouldn’t give a spoonful of that soup for a hundred bushels of it. Take my advice, sir, and have soup twice, sir. As it was carried along the main-deck, I’m dishonest, if the young gentlemen didn’t follow it, with the water running down in streams from the corners of their mouths, and their tongues entreatingly lolling out, like a parcel of hungry dogs in Cripplegate, following the catsmeat-man’s barrow. One more rasp over your upper lip, and you are as smooth as the new-born babe—talking of lips, as the first spoonful of that turtle-soup glides over them—the devil! I’ll take God to witness, it was an accident—the roll of the ship!”
Joshua Daunton was on his knees before Mr Pigtop, who was in an agony of pain, holding on his upper lip, which was nearly severed from his face, whilst the blood was streaming through his fingers.
Doctor Thompson with diachylon and black sticking-plaster was soon on the spot to the assistance of the almost dislipped master’s-mate. After the best was done for it, the poor fellow cut but a sorry appearance; still his extreme hunger, made almost furious by the vision of the turtle-soup, so artfully conjured up by the malicious Joshua, got the better of his sense of pain; and with a great band of black plaster reaching transversely from the right nostril to the left corner of his mouth, the grim-looking Mr Pigtop made haste to don the new uniform.