Page:The Shaving of Shagpat (1856).djvu/322

308 his vision with insolent flourishings of the apparatus of barbercraft,—all this; and that upon one occasion I had forced an entrance to him in his shop-front after dusk, when the people were retiring from their observation of Shagpat, and compelled him to submit to the lather, purposing to have him shaved. They said, "Thereat mark a wonder of special grace and protection accorded to Shagpat, and the care of him exercised by Genii, O King of this City; for the blade of the barber in its contact with the first hair broke, fell in twain, and the edge of it became blunter than a date-stone!"

The King exclaimed, T is wondrous! Wullahy! We will have it announced to them of Oolb, the shorn, the self-abased, the tackle-contaminated ones; and I will have it written on tablets of virgin silver in gold letters, that time hereafter may read of Shagpat, the unparalleled, and the care of him exercised by Genii. Wullahy! he reflecteth honour on the throne itself. My Vizier is he!"

Now this false-speaking prevailed, and a day was fixed for my degradation before the people, and 'twas to be a day of exaltation for Shagpat. Dust was in the eyes of the King, wool in his ears, oblivion of long services in his heart! Methinketh likewise, O Master of the Event, that his conduct to me was seasoned with folly and small reading of that which futurity bringeth forth. I was disgraced, thwacked with the thong; Shagpat exalted, enjoying my viziership taken from me, and men made foolish—ruined by him. I