"Parlate Italiano?"
"Nay."
"Well, one thing is sure, then," I said; "you will not talk me to death, anyway!"
Having made the most graceful gestures of which I was capable to indicate what I wanted, I settled myself in a hard chair and laid my head against a rest resembling the vise furnished by a photographer when he asks you "to look pleasant." The preliminaries being over, the Norwegian Figaro took his razor and made one awful never-to-be-forgotten swoop at my cheek as if he were mowing grain with a scythe! I gave a roar like a Norwegian waterfall and bounded from the chair in agony! When I had fully wiped away my blood and tears, I asked him faintly:
"Have you any ether?"
"Nay."
"Any laughing-gas?"
"Nay."
"Any cocaine?"
"Nay."