I think I must have drifted away in a half-dream while the barber went over one side of my face. He was just brushing in the hot lather on the other side when I suddenly became aware of a great commotion in the shop. I straightened up with one side of my face well lathered, to find a “spirit hunt” in progress. The barber stood with his brush in one hand and an open razor in the other. Several men had armed themselves with canes and umbrellas. A fierce-looking Irishman with a club was stealthily approaching my overcoat as it hung on the nail. He raised his club to strike a heavy blow. I jumped out of that chair as I fancy a person would leave the electric chair if he were suddenly freed. I caught him by the arm.
“What are you spoiling my overcoat for?”
“It’s a spirit. The devil himself. Hear him holler in there! Hark at him! Do ye not hear thim groans?”
Then it suddenly came to me what the “spirit” was. I had put my “acousticon” or electric hearing device into its case without shutting off the electric current. It was really a small telephone, and while the current is on, the sound magnifier gathers the sounds in a room and throws them out in a series of whistles, groanings and roarings. The Irishman and his friends had finally located the “spirit” emitting these noises under my coat, where it certainly was hiding.
With the coating of lather still on my face, I took the coat down and explained the instrument. The men listened like children as I switched the current on and off, explained the dry cell battery, the ear piece and the receiver. I let them try it at the ear until they were satisfied—all but the Irishman. He looked at the machine for a moment and then glanced at me and raised his voice:
“Ye poor thing; ye don’t hear nothin’, do ye?”
“Not much. I have the advantage of you, for you must listen to everybody. I don’t have to. I am sure you have heard things today you were sorry to hear.”
“Ain’t that right now? But don’t nobody ever come and bawl ye out?”
“No; not even my wife, for, you see, her throat would give out before my ears would give in. Bawling out a deaf man is no joke for the bawler!”
“Well, it’s good to be delivered from the women; they have tongues like a fish-hook, ’tis true. But don’t ye hear no good music?”