Little Mr Bouncer and His Friend Verdant Green/Chapter 24
CHAPTER XXIV.
LITTLE MR. BOUNCER MAKES HIS ESCAPE FROM MR. QUICKFALL.
PENING Mr. Quickfall's shop-door, Mr. Bouncer set off a small shrill-tongued bell into a screaming summons for the immediate appearance of the proprietor and his competent assistants from London and Paris. Perhaps the latter were mythical persons; or, they may have been engaged at their dinners; any way, Mr. Bouncer's head was not confided to their tonsorial care; and it was the proprietor of the establishment who waited upon him, and ushered him, through the shop, into one of the advertised "spacious hair-cutting saloons."
Perhaps, when Mr. Quickfall had thus described his premises, he had contemplated vast alterations which he had never carried out; for the small apartment into which Mr. Bouncer was shown had all the cheerlessness of the desert, without its limitless prospect. In fact, the view through the solitary window was restricted to a water-butt of bloated dimensions, and a dead wall of uncompromising brickiness. On the floor was an attenuated piece of oilcloth, the pattern of which had long since been starved out; and on a table by the window were arranged the unguents, soaps, brushes, combs, hair-oil, cigars, and other commodities in which Mr. Quickfall dealt He was a tall, largely made man, who, in years, had passed what is usually called "the prime of life"—a most uncertain and indefinite expression, especially when we call to mind such examples of youthful, hard-working septuagenarians as Lord Palmerston and many of our Judges and Lord Chancellors. Mr. Quickfall had a slow, ponderous manner, in keeping with his dimensions, and suggesting the notion of an amiable elephant who had taken to hair-cutting from mere philanthropy. He was in his shirt-sleeves and carpet slippers, and was girt about with a white apron, furnished with pockets for the implements of his trade.
Mr. Bouncer took his seat on the operating chair, where Mr. Quickfall, by the aid of a cotton wrapper, folded him into the semblance of a parcel, as though he were to be forthwith ticketed and sent away by the next train from the Barham Station. Such a journey had, in fact, to be taken by Mr. Bouncer, who began to fear that his progress to "the little village "would be somewhat delayed, if this Barham barber did not hurry himself a little more than, at the present, he seemed inclined to do. For it very quickly was made evident that, although Mr. Quickfall was slow in action, yet he was quick in speech, and was a most communicative person. He had no sooner got Mr. Bouncer well tucked up into a parcel, and had brushed his hair all over his eyes, than he solemnly paused at the very initiation of his work to commence a highly uninteresting narrative concerning the election of a new member of the Town Council. It appeared, from the statements to which Mr. Bouncer, in his helpless and packed-up state, was compelled to listen, that Mr. Quickfall was a member of that august body, and that the present contest was tearing Barham to pieces, and wounding it in its very tenderest points; and that, if the obnoxious person—whose name was Tarver—should succeed in his election, the doom of Barham was virtually settled, and its position in the eyes of Europe irretrievably compromised. But Mr. Quickfall entertained the hope that he himself might be the humble instrument of opening the eyes of Barham to a proper sense of its true position, and of ridding the Town Council of the dreadful incubus of a Tarver.
While he uttered these patriotic sentiments, Mr. Quickfall was far too engrossed with his subject to continue his hair-dressing duties; and, with comb and scissors in his outstretched hands, he stood in front of his customer, as though time were no object with him, and that the business of hair-cutting could be continued at convenient intervals during the progress of his address. Little Mr. Bouncer, who was utterly indifferent not only to the success of Tarver, but to the doom of Barham, thought of Crowquill's sketch of the talkative parrot of a hairdresser, who says to the bear, upon whose head he is engaged, "Do you think we shall have a war with Roosher, sir?" To which the old bear sulkily replies, "Don't chatter, sir; but dress my hair." And, further, he called to mind the old anecdote how a person in his position had repeatedly said to the loquacious barber, "Do cut it short!" until the barber, accepting the adjuration as applied not to his own narrative, but to his customer's hair, replied, "I don't think it can be cut shorter, sir; for there is no more hair to cut." Pondering on this anecdote, Mr. Bouncer thought it wiser to hold his tongue, and to sit, like Patience on the oilcloth, while Mr. Quickfall harangued him.
It seemed as though the barber of Barham might have said, "Bid me discourse; I will enchant thine ear;" for he, evidently, must have entertained a strong impression of his own capability for a monologue entertainment. Something that he had said in reference to an anonymous letter that had been forwarded to him in connection with that terrible Tarver business, and which letter Mr. Quickfall denounced as an impudent forgery, reminded him of an episode in his younger years, which, as a matter of course, Mr. Quickfall very leisurely narrated, the while he made a full pause in the operations on Mr. Bouncer's head.
"It was while I was apprentice to Hopkins, late Nicholson, in London, that I was sent for to cut a party at his own private house. A very pleasant and respectable party he was, with a handsome face, bold features and a fine physic." By which Mr. Quickfall meant physique. "Most affable he was in his conversation, and he asked me what I had heard about the reports that were afloat concerning Marsh and Stracey's bank in Berners Street. I told him all that I knew, which was not of the best; but, he seemed to think that it would blow over, and that all would come right. Well, sir, I finished cutting that party; and it was n't till three days after that I found out who he was. He was Fauntleroy,
the banker and forger; Marsh and Stracey's had broke, and he was in prison. Nothing could save him; the Bank of England lost three hundred and sixty thousand pounds by him; and he was condemned to die. I well remember the day; it was November the thirtieth, 1824. Having been the last person to cut that party, my governor gave me leave to go and see the execution at Newgate. Such a crowd I have never seen before or since; but, Mr. Fauntleroy bore himself like a man, and passed away quite quietly. Yes, sir; you see before you the very same individual who was the last person to cut a party who was hung for forgeries that cost the Bank of England three hundred and sixty thousand pounds." Mr. Quickfall mentioned this sum very slowly and with great unction, as though the extent of the crime in some way reflected credit upon himself.
"I, also, must cut a party, for I must cut away from you," said little Mr. Bouncer, as he rose to his feet, and endeavoured to shake himself free from the semblance of a parcel. "I 'm not a wedding guest, and you 're not an ancient mariner; and, if I stop to hear any more of your rummy nuisances—that is to say, reminiscences—I shall miss my train."
"But, I 've only cut your hair on one side, sir!" remonstrated Mr. Quickfall.
"All the same, I can't wait to have the other side cut; so, I must journey up to Town half shorn." And Mr. Bouncer meant what he said; for, he freed himself from the cotton wrapper, and, despite the entreaties of Mr. Quickfall, quitted that person's spacious hair-cutting saloon, its proprietor being "left lamenting," like Lord Ullin in Campbell's ballad, but firmly refusing to take his customer's sixpence, on the ground that, if he were paid for an incompleted job, it might provide his implacable foe, Tarver, with a stinging taunt against him as a member of the Town Council of Barham.