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The vast gulf that separates the near-Panama from the real thing became perfectly clear to me then, if it had never been so before, and I knew how it had come about that a New Yorker could buy a Panama hat for two dollars and fifty cents on Eighth avenue which on Fifth avenue would cost him ten dollars; and why a three-dollar Leghorn purchased in Chicago was inferior to a ninety-five dollar Leghorn manufactured in Newark, New Jersey, was made so obvious that I have worn neither since. His discourse was lucid, picturesque, convincing, and so completely comprehensive that women's hats became no more of a mystery to me than are those which our truck horses wear in midsummer with their ears sticking up through holes in the crown. As we drew near our destination I suddenly observed a smile breaking out on his lips, and a decided twinkle in his eye.
"Good Lord!" said he. "I've only just realized that I have been talking you deaf, dumb, and blind for nearly twenty-four straight hours, without giving you a chance to slide in a word edge-wise. I hope I haven't made you think life's nothing but a hat to me?"
"On the contrary," said I, "I've learned a lot. You've made life worth living."
"I get so infernally interested in my business," said he apologetically, "that sometimes I don't realize that maybe the other fellow has something to say too. I meant to have asked you this morning, but I forgot. What's your line?"
I was seized with a jocular impulse, and I answered instantly "Natural gas."
He looked at me with a puzzled expression. "Natural gas?" he repeated. "That's a queer business. How do you make deliveries?"
"Come around to the lecture hall with me to-night and I'll show you," said I.
He threw his head back
Weekly," at that time under Harvey's control, devoted to a full account of the Mark Twain dinner both in picture and in text. In turning over the leaves to see what kind of melon-shaped head the flashlight photographer had given me I came upon the counterfeit presentment of the group of which I had been a member, and was relieved to find that the print had treated me fairly well, and that instead of looking like a cross between a professional gambler and a train robber, as most of my published portraits have made me appear, the thing was recognizable, and in certain unsuspecting quarters might enable me to pass as a reputable citizen. The snipping of the scissors back of my ear suddenly ceased as I gazed upon my alleged "liniments" as an old friend of mine used to call them and the barber's voice broke the stillness.
"Say," he said, pointing with the scissors point to the portrait of myself, "that guy looks sump'n like you, don't he?"
"He ought to," said I. "Me and him's the same guy."
"Well whaddyer know about that!" he ejaculated. "Really?"
"Yep," said I.
"And you're from New York, eh?" he went on, resuming his labors. "What's the name?"
I enlightened him, and received the inevitable question.
"Whaddyer think of Chicago?"
It had happened that every visit I had made to Chicago for several years had shown that city almost completely hidden beneath a pall of sooty cloud and lake fog; so I answered him accordingly.
"Why, I like Chicago very much," said I, "very much indeed; but there is room for improvement here, of course. For instance, Chicago is dark, and gloomy, and cold. Now over in New York," I added, "we have a little round, yellow ball that is hauled up into the sky out of the wilds of Long Island every morning, and it is so arranged that it moves in a perfect semicircle through the sky at the rate of about sixty seconds a minute. It is a wonderful invention. It sheds light on everything, on everybody, and sort of warms things up for us, and unlike most things in New York it doesn't cost anybody a cent. Best of all, when the day is over, and we want things darkened up a bit so that we can go to sleep, the little ball sinks out of sight over on the western side of the city."
"Aw go wan!" he put in. "I know what you mean you mean the sun."
"Yes," said I; "that's just what we call it. You've evidently heard of it before but why don't you have something of the kind out here?"
His reply was a mixture of a snort and a sniff.
I then went on my journey into Iowa, and at the end of about ten days was back in Chicago once more, and in need of further renovation I again sought the assistance of my tonsorial friend. After a cordial greeting he said:
"Say I told my wife how I'd fixed you up the other day, and she'd heard of you before . You wrote a book called 'Tea and Coffee' once, didn't cha?"
"Something like that," I replied. "It was called 'Coffee and Repartee.'"
"Well, anyhow, whatever the thing was called, she'd read it," said the barber.
"I have met two other people who have done the same thing and lived; so don't worry," I observed.
"Whaddyer suppose she ast me?" he queried.
"I give it up," said I. "What?"
"She ast me," said he, "was you so very comical, and I told her no, he ain't so damned comical, but he's a hell of a kidder !"