pletion of that tonsorial process that had been commenced by Mr. Quickfall at Barham. When he came to this resolution, he was in the near neighbourhood of Leicester Square; and, if he had troubled himself to think twice on the subject, he might have concluded that he should infallibly enter the shop of a foreigner. Such was the case. Passing into a hairdresser's shop, bright with gilding and mirrors—neat, clean, and polished, tasteful and elegant in all its appointments, and, in a word, an utter contrast to the poky and dirty "spacious hair-cutting saloon" of the Barham barber, Mr. Bouncer found himself in the presence of the proprietor of the establishment, who was so decidedly French, that, as was soon apparent, he had not picked up sufficient English to enable him to converse with such a true-born Briton as was Mr. Bouncer.
It was that little gentleman's misfortune, rather than his fault, that, although he had been taught Greek and Latin, both at school and college, he had never been instructed in the tongue spoken on the other side of the Channel. Perhaps, the knowledge of French was expected to be developed spontaneously, and to come in the course of nature, like the growth of whiskers; but, as yet, Nature had neither favoured Mr. Bouncer with whiskers nor the capacity to speak French. Therefore, he was only able to make signs to this second of the brace of barbers who chanced to be his tonsors on that day, and to take a seat and point to his hair, and say, in pigeon-English that he fancied would be intelligible to the Frenchman—"De hair—cut—sivoo play?" Little Mr. Bouncer was rather pleased at being able to produce this genuine fragment of French.
Probably (very probably!) he did not give it the
