“What’s that?” screamed Devlin, stopping his lathering. “Mr. Myre divorced from Art!” He went to the door to see that it was carefully closed. “Whisht, sir; it’s a fine hairy libel-action ye’ll be wadin’ in at the police courts, Mr. Noll, if ye don’t hold a restraint on ye.”
“But my good Devlin—he always swore that reward and affluence destroy the artist!”
Devlin laughed; and got back to his lathering:
“Ah, Mr. Noll, it’s your old self, it is—findin’ flaws in the Irish logic of him.” He chose a razor. “By the book, I remember well the day Mr. Lovegood pulled the leg of the great man here. Ye’ll remember it, maybe. No?” He held Noll’s chin with damp fingers and began to shave: “Well, says Mr. Myre, says he, it’s death and to the devil with art when the artist works for money and reward, says he. That’s so, says Mr. Lovegood, for I always thought meself, says Lovegood, down in the great resoundin’ belly of him, says he: I always thought meself, says he, that Willie Shakespeare would have turned out less indifferent poetry, says he, if he hadn’t been trying to fill the stalls in his old Globe Theatre all the time, says he, and makin’ eight thousand a year, present reckoning, out of the damned blank poetry of him, says he.... Mr. Myre he licked his lips, wid a black sullen look on him, like a dog that’s been robbed of his bone. And, by the powers, the most simple law officer of the Crown could have foretold that Mr. Myre was going to have a sudden engagement in the city thin and there from the wan smile that came over the head of him. But——”
He concentrated his whole attention for a while on the upper lip of Noll, and having shaved it, he added:
“But it’s the black mental gloom that got a holt of the great man that day.”
“Oh?” asked Noll.
“That’s so,” said the barber. “Oh, yes.... And ye didn’t hear tell of it, sir?... Mother of God, it was the talk of the sivin continents.... Ah, begod, sure it’s a damned penny-whistle this Fame, anny way. Ah, sir; it was a great fall that, mind ye. He took it like Julius Cæsar with the Opposition takin’ hacks out of him under Pompey’s pillar—just wid a wan dignified look on him.... Oh, yes; he’s a great man. If stickin’ to it, and the divil’s own confidence in one’s own greatness, and industry, and strong opinions and histrionic adultery can make genius, that man’s a barrel of it——”
He was drying Noll’s face, and removing the shaving-cloths from about his chin when the cling of the door-bell gave warning that someone had entered the outer shop—footsteps came towards the room.
“Whisht!” said the barber, “here’s Mr. Cartel Maungy.”