stairs to set his shop in unaccustomed order, arranged his window after a novel fashion, and having thrown open his door, assumed a crouching attitude upon a chair by the side of a window, from the corner of which he was in a situation to watch, unobserved, the issue. Suddenly the opposite door was opened; a young gentleman in an apron of snowy whiteness, with a handsome tortoise-shell comb stuck carelessly in a hyacinthine side-lock (could it be Frizzle?) issued forth, and carefully taking down the shutters placed them in a convenient, newly-painted, green, kind of sentry-box by the side of the door. What a blaze of splendour burst upon the dazzled vision of Singe! Pyramids of pomatum-pots towered in Egyptian grandeur, forests of hair, combs, and tooth-brushes arose in lateral amphitheatres, vast glass cases on mahogany shelves filled to overflowing with wash-balls, and smelling-bottles, green, blue, yellow, crimson, all the hues of Iris' woof, reflected the sun's rising beams. But, worst of all, three heads, two male and one female busts, larger, aye, and more natural even than life-the perfection of wax-work-stared with romantic ken through the vast windows as though proud (as well they might be) of the curled, stylish, and costly wigs that adorned their several sculls.

For the first time of his life Singe felt downright sickness at heart. His few and formal hairs, which he invariably plastered to his pate with perfumed unguents, erected themselves singly, as though appealing against this monstrous spectacle, and, as he tottered to a chair in the middle of the shop placed for the reception of customers, a cold perspiration exuded from his brow. But this was no time for supineness or despair. Measures must be taken. Could not he vie with this rival in splendour, or, at least, contrive a respectable appearance which should not be disgraced by a comparison with the exhibition of his neighbour? Sallying forth boldly, then, he took in at one ample and searching glance all that he had to contend against, and turning suddenly prepared to make a comparative estimate of his own pretensions. I feel that I cannot describe the sound which at that moment issued from his mouth. It was an amalgamation of hysteria, hiccups, and a cough. What! vie with Frizzle? Ha! ha! ha! This provincial pig-sty cut out that metropolitan establishment! Oh! he felt it was so impossible! What a miserable, wretched, niggard, nasty hole! What a common, mean, old-fashioned, rascally shop! what a hut, or, rather, what a hutch! What a walking-stick, what a faded wand was that which he had hitherto conceived to be a pole, compared with the variegated mast which Frizzle himself (whom now for the first time he beheld) and his genteel apprentice were assisting to lift into the air, and which in a few minutes hung its golden knob threateningly high above the pin's-head insignificance of his own! And then, the one wooden block-head, a three-quarter size of humanity, in his own window, and the three paragons, half as large again as actual existence, that ornamented the window of his adversary! He had thought his own even comely before, surmounted as it was by a filthy, dusty, fusty peruke. What a daub was that formerly pleasing production! What a hideous smirk was that once pleasing smile upon its timber countenance! I blush to record the act-I blush

to record the blush of Singe while he performed the act-when I state that, after a few day's further trial, he opened the glass-case, the shrine in which it was contained, and, withdrawing the outrage upon human nature, "hid his diminished head" in the wood-hole.

It is a mournful fact, but the reader will not be surprised at it when he reflects upon the attraction of novelty and new faces, that the business of Singe fell off rapidly, and that the practice of his rival gained daily and extensive ground. Noses, that once had been turned up inside his shop with amiable resignation to the will of the shaving-brush, were now turned up outside of it, as their owners crossed over the path (which Frizzle took care to have swept every morning) and entered the opposite concern. Mr. Uppercrust the mayor no longer extended his patronage; Ichneumon the attorney withdrew his juvenile host; and, of the gentry, the bald and glossy scull of Furlong alone shone upon him in his distress.

"In nature there is nothing melancholy,"

says Coleridge; but here was an unnatural state of affairs, and Singe was so, and with reason. Good, kind, and charitable individual as he was, how he hated Frizzle! He hated, I say, the bloated rascal who was fattening upon his own proper spoils. He hated to see the name stick over the door. The two vile zig-zag Z's were infinitely insulting. He hated the very utterance of the name. "FrizzleFrizzle," he was constantly muttering to himself, and he cursed the offensive eggs-and-bacon sound of the word. He began to hate the very town (the spot of his nativity) upon which Frizzle had so suddenly come down like a wolf on the fold; in a word, he was sick to. death of the ungrateful, vile, filthy, capricious, Frizzle-ridden place.

The ill-fated Singe had, it is true, hoarded a small sum of money. Like a prudent and provident man he had lain by for a rainy day; but what financial umbrella could withstand the tempest that was now raging about his ears? Little by little, accompanied by groans and inward wrestlings, it melted away. Nor did it appear likely that any speedy or even remote chances would present themselves of enabling him to recruit his exhaused budget. Besides his own jaws, which he shaved twice a day to keep his hand in, no human visage offered itself to his operations. He was his own, he was his only, customer. Existence, to be so, must be supported. Man, "nor woman either," can live without food; and certain corkscrew rumblings of the inward man spoke eloquently of duties which he owed to himself. And now he felt that he also owed to others. He had been compelled to strain his restricted credit to the utmost. He had run up several debts. Run up! the phrase suits not he had walked up, sauntered up, crawled up debts, for the recovery of which threats of appeal to the County Court had been levelled at him.

Let no one hastily condemn our unfortunate barber, when I acknowledge that often in secret converse with his wife he urged the expediency of retreating from the accursed place. If, however, some lax unscrupulous moralist should demand why he did not pack up his alls and be off without beat of drum, I answer

"For this plain reason-man is not a fly,"

and the deuce a driver of a fly waggon would have taken charge of Singe's appurtenances without forthwith prating of his whereabout to his numerous flint and steel-hearted creditors.

Is it wonderful that, under these circumstances, his thoughts were turned tomb-ward? that he often desired death? His deplorable plight tended to encourage such thoughts; the cholera, which was at that time raging in the town, set his mind at work on that subject. How he longed to be a patient! How he wished the "blue stage" would draw up to his door and carry him away an inside passenger! How he yearned for that last refuge for the destitute, for that world of unadulterated spirits, for that licensed still with I know not how many worms to it! How he longed to leap into the other worldto have one mighty vault to himself!

That these thoughts should have possessed him is by no means strange; but that they should have given birth to a design which I am now about to unfold is not a little remarkable. Flushed with an unexpected shilling which remained to him over and above his immediate exigencies, Singe had been one evening smoking his pipe at the Blue Lion (for the Griffin had long ago closed its jaws against him), and he returned home on that night with a pint of ale for his partner, and a most unusual flow of spirits, which he kept to himself. Puffing his fragrant herb in the chimney corner, he sat apparently buried in profound thought, occasionally, however, casting a speculative glance towards his wife, who sat opposite, darning a very old stocking. He seemed as though his mind was labouring with some momentous matter of which it would fain unburthen itself. At length, withdrawing his pipe from his mouth, he remarked,

"And so poor Snaggs is gone,"

"Gone where?" said Mrs. Singe, with an indifferent air. "Gone dead," cried Samuel,-" died of the cholera last night." "Dear me!" exclaimed the wife, with needle in rest and her hand laid upon her knee, "how shocking!"

Um," grunted Singe, raising his eyes mournfully and resuming his pipe. There was a silence as dead as poor Snaggs for some minutes. Singe, however, drew himself together after a short period, and leaning forward, with his pipe extended some two inches from his mouth, said abruptly,

"How, how are we to manage, Mrs. Singe? Things are getting worse and worse every day, and I feel I shall never recover myself in this place. You know I have often said if we could manage to get to London and open an "Easy Shaving Shop" in the Seven Dials (old Lightly, his former master, came from the Seven Dials) we should do well-don't you think we should?"

"But how are we to get there," expostulated the wife, "it's impossible."

"True," said Singe, and he threw himself back in his chair. An agreeable expression, indicative of pleasure, suddenly crossed over his features.

"I say, Mrs. Singe," said he, as he placed his hand upon her knee and gave a knowing wink, "I complained of being very ill to-night at the Blue Lion."

"Goodness, Samuel, you never looked better, considering." "And look you here," cried the barber, "I say I wish I was dead," and he winked still more knowingly.

"Why, Singe?"

Why, Mrs. Singe," pursued the enigmatic shaver," shouldn't I be buried gratis by the Benefit Society? Wouldn't they give you, my widow, ten pounds? Wouldn't they raise a subscription for you? and shouldn't we then be able to get up to London? eh!"

"We!" cried Kezia, with a stare. "God bless the man! he's mad. Why, you'd be in your grave."

"No, no, not I, not I," exclaimed Singe, poking the end of his pipe towards his wife; "another-something else. I'll tell you how it is, Mrs. Singe," he continued, in a solemn tone, "these Gravelstone folks have used me very, very ill, and I will have something out of them before I go-I will. I mean to feign myself dead-make believe, you see. You shall get the ten pounds and a subscription raised, and we'll be off to London, change the name of Singe, open shop, get rich, and die happy."

Well, I never heard the like of that before." And the good woman indulged in a burst of unusual merriment. "Sam, you've been drinking-you know you have-don't shake your head, I'm certain of it--but mercy, man, how should I be able to do my part? I couldn't squeeze out a single tear."

"As others do," cried Singe, with a bitter grin, "who have less cause to weep than you have just now. Put a peeled onion into your handkerchief, and pinch your nose well before you go out, to make it look red."

"Lord! Singe, how queer!" cried the wife, scratching her left ear; but how would you manage?"

"Leave that to me," cried the barber, with dignity, waving his hand. "Did I ever fail in any thing I undertook? Did I not always succeed till that fellow yonder, that Frizzle (curse the fellow's name), sneaked into the town? Listen!"

Here a long conversation ensued, carried on in cautious whispers, which it is not politic that the reader should overhear; and some time on the wrong side of midnight the scheming couple betook themselves to rest.

On the following morning the barber and his wife despatched their frugal meal with an unaccustomed haste, which, for greater privacy, was enjoyed in the small back room, a nervous anxiety pervading each visage during the refection, which betrayed that some mighty and important work was on foot, demanding not only uncommon tact and skill, but extraordinary firmness and presence of mind.

"Kezia, my dear," said Singe, "before you go to Slash, just put down to the fire my nightcap and long bedgown; though I am going to die of the cholera I don't wish to catch my death of cold; and mind, get out the gum and powder-blue, and don't forget the shavingglass in the shop.'

"La! Samuel, I am so flustered, you don't know," cried Kezia, as she returned with the required articles and placed them upon the table; "I am certain I shall be discovered."

"Fiddle-de-dee-dont tell me," returned the barber, snapping his fingers, "why, you look half a widow already. Tell Slash-eh! cramp, plenty of cramp, doubled up like a ball, round as a hoop, curled up like those lit le sensitive ladies that turn somersets in a warm hand. Be sure, of all things, you stick to cramp, and blue spots-mind the blue spots. Think of the Seven Dials as you go along and we're sure to succeed. You may also drop hints to the neighbours-they won't come near me, depend on't."

So saying, the little barber immersed some gum into a small saucepan filled with water, and placed it carefully on the hob to simmer. In the meantime, somewhat fortified by the encouraging and confident speech of her husband, Mrs. Singe prepared herself to go forth, dropping, however, sundry natural doubts and fears of her success, and venting praiseworthy but ill-timed conscientious scruples.

"Now, go at once, that's a good woman," cried Singe impatiently, to whose sensitive soul these appeals were any thing but satisfactory, "do as I bid you-this is the only time I mean to die, I tell you-I can't die every day, like a grasshopper. I shall make myself ready before Slash arrives. Come, pluck up a good heart-that's it-no, corners of mouth a leetle more drawn down-that'll do."

Left to himself, the barber straightways invested himself in his long bedgown, and endued himself with a carefully bleached nightcap, which he tied under the chin. And now, drawing forth a powder-puff, he gingerly variegated the surface of his countenance with azure-spots, and seizing the looking-glass, with anxious scrutiny

examined the result.

The key of the door inserted into the lock aroused him from a reverie into which he had fallen, and, starting up, he sprang up-stairs with the agility of a monkey, and was enveloped in the bed-clothes in a moment.

It was Mrs. Singe, who now entered the apartment alone.

་

Well, have you told Slash?" cried the barber, cautiously disclosing his disfigured front from the edge of the coverlid.

"I have, Samuel (la! how shocking you look!), and he has sent you some physic;" and the careful woman, as she spoke, drew from beneath her shawl a large bottle of medicine. "It must all be taken directly."

"When is he coming?" demanded Singe. "He had better be here soon, if he wishes to see me alive, for I mean to die in half an hour;

as for the physic, let that be thrown down the sink, it may do good to some of the rats we laid the poison for a few days ago."

He can't be here before the afternnoon," answered the wife; "he says he has other patients to attend to of more importance than you. Mr. Ichneumon's children are all lying dangerously ill of the scarlet fever."

"Serve 'em right, serve 'em right," cried the barber, with malignant emphasis; "they discarded me."

"Oh! don't say so, Samuel, the poor innocents had nothing to do with that; there they have been at death's door-such blisteringsall their little heads shaved ".

"Which I should have done," interrupted Singe, furiously, "if it