The town was gay with the bunting displayed in the store signs, advertisements, and invitations to "walk in."
The "Head Quarters" store is "selling out at cost price," boots, shoes, bacon, lard, flour, stores, hardware, etc., with all intermediate articles, forming the stock to be sacrificed. A Saddle and Harness manufactory, outwardly rich in signs and specimens of its work, is followed by a "Nobby Clothing" store that even surpasses it in its ticketed display of "pants" and "vests." Inside, a customer, with his feet on the counter, leans back in his chair and chats to the shopman, who is perched on his own cask. "Ladies' Dress Goods," "Fancy Goods," "Gents' Furnishing Goods," "Stores and Tinware," "The Alhambra Billiard Saloon," "The Tucson Restaurant," "Markets," "Estate Offices," diagrams of gouty-looking boots, swollen loaves, gigantic pipes, guns, bottles, etc., etc., without end, in black upon a white linen ground, invite attention everywhere.
In a town of this kind, next to the drinking saloons, the barber's shop is the chief place of resort. The barber, in importance, ranks second only to the artistic mixer of cool drinks. He is hail-fellow-well-met with every one. Especially cheery and amusingly ceremonious is Figaro if he happen to be a coloured man. His memory is prodigious. Men enter that he has not seen for months, and with whom he is perhaps only slightly acquainted; yet he resumes the conversation precisely where it terminated when they parted. He reminds his visitor of what he has said, and of what his projects were when he last was shaved there, and he persistently inquires how far those assertions have been verified, and those intentions fulfilled. Having posted himself up to the latest date in all that concerns the victim of his curiosity, he proceeds, in return, to furnish him with biographical sketches of such later passages in the lives of his friends as may have escaped his knowledge.
In the barber's shop that I entered the three chairs were all occupied. A slender, graceful, "interesting young man," of an Italian type of face, dressed in a blue shell-jacket bound with yellow, a good deal of loud jewellery, and a "dandy-rig" generally, operated on one customer; a "wooden-mugged down-Easter," with bushy eyebrows, and quick, twinkling eyes, who sang over and over again, absently, though still with heart-wrung pathos, "Oh, my little darling, I love you! Oh, my little darling, yes, I do!" had the second in charge; the third was at the mercy of a black man, who was cross-questioning him very closely as to a recent trip to Tombstone.
I fell to the hands of the dude, and was sheeted and soaped by him with a theatrical flourish that led me to anticipate the rest of the performance with interest. Three various strops were necessary to put an edge on the razor that was to execute me. The first, a rough one, scraped like a file; the second made the razor ring like a bell beneath the reckless strokes of its dashing manipulator; over the third it slid like soap. I was prepared for some fancy shaving, and was not disappointed. After a few false starts the young man, at one fell swoop, slid the razor through the stubble on my face from one end of the cheek to the other. For a little while he sliced about in a fashion that irresistibly reminded one of cutlass drill, and then settled down to more delicate work. Certainly he had a sure and dainty touch, but to be shaved by him often would take years off a nervous man's life. Even when the rougher work was finished he was sufficiently alarming. Running his fingers over my chin he would discover a hair that had escaped him, and, as if he were flicking a fly off a wall with a whip-lash, sweep down upon it and smooth it off at one fell stroke. As for the coloured gentleman, he arrayed himself in magnificent clothing and went out; the "down-Easter," having finished his task, took up a guitar and croaked a few amorous ballads in a decayed voice.
Returning to the hotel, I found that Mr. Paul Maroney had arisen. I also found a card of invitation from (I think it was) the "Union Club" awaiting me. Being dubious with regard to the nature of a club in Tucson, I interrogated Maroney on the subject.
"Do you want to play monte?" he asked, weighing the card between his finger and thumb.
"No."
"Well...."