IN THE CHAIR.

Auckland Star, Volume LV, Issue 235, 3 October 1924, Page 9

IN THE CHAIR.

A TALK BY THE BARBER. QUEER CUSTOMERS. SOME CUTTING REMARKS. '•You get pretty tf'red at this job," said the barber. "You're on your feet I all the time. You don't get much I chance for a spell. When you're not shaving you're sharpening razors. "Do we get some queer customers? We do that. Some of 'em want all the tittivating in the world. You can't satisfy 'em. They want oil, bay rum and scent and powder, and they make you hold a mirror to the backs of their heads so that they can see how they look from the rear. Vain—you've said it! "One fellow come in the other day and he was awf'ly particular. Had to go over him three times. 'Now, give mc a real good shave,' he said, 'I've got to go to a reception at Remuera to-night.' Well, he got a good shave and then he fancied a special hair-trim. 'Don't take much off there," he said, or 'you con go a bit closer there.' When I'd shaved and trimmed and powdered and scented his lordship, he spent about ten miuutes at the mirror. 'A very good trim-up, barber,' he says, and then sUps a coin in my hand. I feels it and then ) I says to myself, 'half-a-crown tip, and I jolly well earned it.' After be went out I had a look at it—and blest if it wasn't only a blooming penny. I'm. keeping it in case his nibs comes back again. ' He might repent of bis generosity. The Chronic Grumblers. "Ther's some fellows always growling. No matter what you do, or how sharp you mako the razor, they'll tell you its 'dragging.' You know very well its not, for you can tell by the feel, but you give it a rub or two ou the strop, or pretend to, just to please 'cm. You might, get a tip —you never know. And it's a funny thing about tips that you can never pick your mark. You can do your very best for some flash-looking cove who's wearing gold chains, diamond rings, and a gorgeous tie pin, and when you've finished he will take his hat and walk away without so much as a thank-you, just as if you were a bit of dirt, and ten to one you'll bear him out in the shop bullying the g : rl at the cash register and telling her the price of shaving is robbery, and that she ought to be prosecuted—as if she could help it! "Yes, a barber's got to be pretty goodtempered." Looking For Trouble. "But there are times when a man wouldn't be flesh and blood if he didn't get a. bit wild with some of them. One chap here the other day looked as if he would like to bite mc. I asked him, 'Razor all right?' quite pleasant like, and he said, 'Oh, it's all right now, but it yvill drag as soon as you put it on my neck!' I told him it would be time enough to squeak when it did drag, not to go looking ahead for trouble. That shut him up. "There was a young cove here yesterday afternoon, who asked mc about six times to be sure to shave him close about the lips and chin. I bet I can guess what company he was in last night. Anyway, he slipped mc a bob, and he looked as if he didn't have many of 'em. "I worked down in Dunedin for a spell once. Believe mo, you don't get many tips down there. When a man comes in for a haircut in Dunedin you can bet your life it's not before he yvants it. Tho harbor earns the money. You don't do a great business in shaving down there, for they nearly all shave themselves, and they won't even bring their razors in to be set until they have got so blunt that shaving is an agony. Making the Price of the Pictures. "You sco some of the families going to the pictures on Saturday afternoon — Dad, Mum, and the kids. You can see at a glance that Mum has put the puddin' basin on their heads and run the scissors around it. Three crops like that means enough money saved to pay for the pictures. "Yes, they're pretty tight down in Dunedin. You'll see a man going for his life in tlie lunch hour sometimes, with a piece of wood on his shoulder, eating his lunch as he goes. The piece of wood has probably fallen o a cart, and he'll be making off home with it at top speed. He wouldn't put it aside somewhere at the place he yvorks until he knocks off in the afternoon. No fear— some of his mates might get down on it. So off he trots home in the lunch hour, eating as he goes. "Some of 'cm are that mean they'll pinch anything. You've got to keep your eye on your razors. I was going home one moonlight night, and I saw a chap walking ahead with his wife. As they were passing a house, they saw a wicket gate leaning out over the path, the top hinge having gone. The bloke stopped and pulled tho gate off, and the pair went for their lives. I tell y OU( they don't leave their clothes out on tho line all night in Dunedin. "Oh, yes, the barbers' job isn't so bad, and the time passes quickly enough when you're busy. But I suppose it's like everything else, you get fed up with it sometimes, especially when you get a drunk in tho chair, and he makes himself unpleasant. But its all in the game."