and the mystery of its manufacture is here disclosed. The only way to
keep razors "set" is to persevere in sending them to various barbers till
the genius who can "set" them to your hand is discovered. Perhaps he
lives at Aleppo; perhaps, like the father of a heroine of comic song, at
Jerusalem. Till he is discovered the shaver wins no secure happiness,
and in the search for the barber who has an elective affinity for the
shaver may be found material for an operetta or an epic. The shaver
figures as a sort of Alastor, seeking the ideal setter of razors, as
Shelley's Alastor sought ideal beauty in the neighbourhood of
Afghanistan, and in the very home of the Central Asian Question. No
razor should be condemned till it has been "stropped" well and carefully.
And this brings us to the great topic of strops. Some say that soldiers'
old buff belts make the best strops. The Scotch peasantry use a peculiar
hard smooth fungus which grows in decaying elm trees. Our author has
heard that "Government now demands the return of" the old buff belts.
Government cannot want them all for its own use, and perhaps will see to
it that old buff strops once more find an open market. In the lack of
old buff belts, you may mix up tallow and the ashes of burnt newspaper,
and smear this unctuous compound on the strop. People who neglect these
"tips," and who are clumsy, like most of us, may waste a forty-eighth
part of their adult years in shaving. This time is worth economizing,
and with a little forethought, an ideal razor-setter, tallow, buff belts,
burnt newspapers, and the rest, we may shave in five minutes daily.



STREET NOISES.


"If any calm, a calm despair," is the portion of people who would like to