Page:The Garden of Romance - 1897.djvu/24

12 be angry? Do not you know that all barbers are not like me, and that you would not find another such, even if you had him made on purpose. You only asked for a barber, and in my person are united the best barber of Bagdad, an experienced physician, a profound chemist, a never-failing astrologer, a finished grammarian, a perfect rhetorician, a subtle logician; a mathematician, thoroughly accomplished in geometry, arithmetic, astronomy, and in all the refinements of algebra; an historian who is acquainted with the history of all the kingdoms in the universe. Besides these sciences, I am well instructed in all the points of philosophy; and have my memory well stored with all our laws and all our traditions. I am a poet, an architect; but what am I not? There is nothing in Nature concealed from me. Your late honoured father, to whom I pay a tribute of tears every time I think of him, was fully convinced of my merit. He loved me, caressed me, and never ceased quoting me in all companies, as the first man in the whole world. My gratitude and friendship for him attaches me to you; and urges me to take you under my protection, and insure you from all the misfortunes with which the planets may threaten you.'

"At this speech, notwithstanding my anger, I could not help laughing. 'When do you mean to have done, impertinent chatterer,' cried I, 'and when do you intend to begin shaving me?'

"'Sir,' replied the barber, 'you do me an injury by calling me a chatterer: every one, on the contrary, bestows on me the honourable appellation of silent. I had six brothers whom you might with some reason have termed chatterers, and that you may be acquainted with them,