“Mr. Murphy,” said she, “will you hurry over to O’Connor’s and tell him to come, at once?”
Chapter V
“He’d strop up his razor, graceful an’ nice,
An’ then from your face he’d carve off a slice.
Your life from the gallows! Ye couldn’t be vexed,
When Tecumsha O’Riley’s calling out ‘next.’”
Comic Song.
SCHWARTZ’S barber shop stood almost within the shadow of the church tower. The gas light streamed through his plate window and across the sidewalk; a row of customers lined up along the wall, waiting their turn in the chair; the fat proprietor stropped a razor and conversed with a short man who stood at the stove rubbing a freshly reaped chin. A large aired man, with a dyed moustache, was pulling a pair of kid gloves over hands too large for them. He wore a light overcoat, a silk hat, a flower in his buttonhole and seemed to sweat importance. This was Squire Moran, thrice elected to the minor judiciary and a power in the ward.
“Ach!” exclaimed Schwartz, “dot vas too pad, Misder Purns.”
“It’s gittin’ a bit wurried I am,” said the little man; “for what kin a body be doin’ wit’out a bit av wurk.”