About Barbers

About Barbers by Mark Twain

Everything changes except barbers and barber shops. These never change. How you feel in a barber's shop the first time you go in is what you will always feel in barbers' shops until the end of your life. I got shaved this morning as usual. A man came to the door as I did. He entered one little step before me and I followed behind him and saw him take the only empty chair, the one with the best barber. I sat down, hoping that I might get the chair belonging to the better of the other two barbers.

I watched the barbers with strong interest to see which one would finish first. When I saw that No. 2 was going faster than No. 1, I became worried. When No. 1 stopped a moment to take a payment from a customer and fell behind in the race, I became very worried. When No. 1 caught up and both he and No. 2 were pulling the customers’ towels away and brushing the powder from their cheeks, it was about even which one would say "Next!"

First, I held my breath with the suspense. But when at the final moment No. 1 stopped to comb his customer's beard, I saw that he had lost the race and I got up and left the shop, to prevent going to No. 2.

I stayed out fifteen minutes and then went back, hoping for better luck. Of course all the chairs were full now and four men sat waiting, silent, and looking bored, as men always do who are waiting their turn in a barber's shop. I sat down and waited too.

At last my turn came. A voice said "Next!" and I got … No. 2, of course. It always happens like this. I said that I was in a hurry and he behaved like he hadn’t heard me. He pushed up my head, and put a towel under it. He pushed his fingers into my collar and put another towel there. He felt my hair with his fingers and said that it needed cutting. I said I that did not want it cut. He felt again and said it was pretty long. I said I had had it cut only a week before. He asked, who cut it? I came back at him immediately with "You did!" I won that one. Then he began to prepare, at the same time as looking at himself in the mirror, stopping now and then to get close and look at a spot. Then he soaped one side of my face and was about to soap the other, when a dog-fight caught his attention and he ran to the window and stayed and watched the whole thing. He came and finished soaping.

He now began to shave, pulling my face and turning my head in different directions. When he began to shave my chin, the tears came. He now held my nose, to help him shave the corners of my lip.

I was trying to guess where he would cut me this time, but he was faster and cut me on the chin before I had made up my mind. I tried to get him to stop shaving. I was afraid that he would go for the side of my chin, where my skin is very soft. But he said he only wanted to shave one little spot and, at the same moment, he moved his razor along the soft part of my chin and cut me again. Now he wet his towel and slapped it all over my face. Then he dried it by slapping with the dry part of the towel. Next he filled the cut with powder. After that, he powdered my whole face, straightened me up and began to feel my hair thoughtfully with his hands. He kept on trying to sell me shampoo until I told him I already had some.

He returned to business, perfumed my hair when I asked him not to, and combed and brushed the rest. I knew I was five minutes too late for the train. Then he took away the towel, brushed it lightly around my face, combed my beard one more time and happily shouted "Next!"

This barber fell down and died of a heart attack two hours later. I am waiting for my revenge...

...I am going to his funeral.