The charge
would be by no means excessive if one wanted or enjoyed all the endless
processes to which one is subjected; but for my part I would willingly
pay double to escape them. The essential part of the business, the
actual shaving, is, as a rule, badly performed, with a heavy hand, and a
good deal of needless pawing-about of the patient's head. But when the
shave is over the horrors are only beginning. First, your whole face is
cooked for several minutes in relays of towels steeped in boiling water.
Then a long series of essences is rubbed into it, generally with the
torturer's naked hand. The sequence of these essences varies in
different "parlours," but one especially loathsome hell-brew, known as
"witchhazel" is everywhere inevitable. Then your wounds have to be
elaborately doctored with stinging chemicals; your hair, which has been
hopelessly touzled in the pawing process, has to be drenched in some
sickly-smelling oil and brushed; your moustache has to be lubricated
and combed; and at last you escape from the tormentor's clutches,
irritated, enervated, hopelessly late for an important appointment, and
so reeking with unholy odours that you feel as though all great
Neptune's ocean would scarcely wash you clean again.
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