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. Only once or twice
have I submitted, out of curiosity, to the whole interminable process. I
now cut it short, not without difficulty, before the "witchhazel" stage
is reached, and am regarded with blank astonishment and disapproval by
the tonsorial professor, who feels his art and mystery insulted in his
person, and is scarcely mollified by a ten-cent tip. Americans, on the
other hand, go through all these processes, and more, with stolid and
long-suffering patience. Yet this nation is credited with having
invented the maxim "Time is money," and is supposed to act up to it with
feverish consistency!


POSTSCRIPT.--As I have said a good deal about clubs in this letter, let
me add to it a word as to the influence of club life in keeping America
in touch with England. At all the leading clubs one or two English daily
papers and all the more important weekly papers are taken as a matter of
course; so that the American club-man has not the slightest difficulty
in keeping abreast of the social, political, and literary life of
England. As a matter of fact, the educated American's knowledge of
England every day puts to shame the Englishman's ignorance of America.
Reciprocity in this matter would be greatly to the advantage of both
countries. I am much mistaken if there is a single club in London where