affairs of most nations are settled by the potentates during their
toilet. While I am shaving the head of your sublime highness, I can
receive your commands to take off the heads of others; and you can have
your person and your state both put in order at the same moment."

"Very true, Mustapha; then, on condition that you continue your office
of barber, I have no objection to throw that of vizier into the
bargain."

Mustapha again prostrated himself, with his tweezers in his hand. He
then rose, and continued his office.

"You can write, Mustapha," observed the pacha, after a short silence.

"Min Allah! God forbid that I should acknowledge it, or I should
consider myself as unfit to assume the office in which your sublime
highness has invested me."

"Although unnecessary for me, I thought it might be requisite for a
vizier," observed the pacha.

"Reading may be necessary, I will allow," replied Mustapha; "but I trust
I can soon prove to your highness that writing is as dangerous as it is
useless. More men have been ruined by that unfortunate acquirement, than
by any other; and dangerous as it is to all, it is still more dangerous
to men in high power. For instance, your sublime highness sends a
message in writing, which is ill-received, and it is produced against
you; but had it been a verbal message, you could deny it, and bastinado
to death the Tartar who carried it, as a proof of your sincerity.