At the little town of Stocksbawler, on the Lower Rhine, in the year of
grace 1830, resided one Hans Scrapschins, an industrious and close-shaving
barber. His industry met with due encouragement from the bearded portion
of the community; and the softer sex, whose greatest fault is fickleness,
generally selected Hans for the honour of new-fronting them, when they had
grown tired of the ringlets nature had bestowed and which time had
frosted.
Hans continued to shave and thrive, and all the careful old burghers
foretold of his future well-doing; when he met with a misfortune, which
promised for a time to shut up his shop and leave him a beggar. He fell in
love.
Neighbours warned Hans of the consequences of his folly; but all
remonstrance was vain. Customers became scarce, wearing out their patience
and their wigs together; the shop became dirty, and winter saw the flies
of summer scattered on his show-board.
Agnes Flirtitz was the prettiest girl in Stocksbawler. Her eyes were as
blue as a summer's sky, her cheeks as rosy as an autumn sunset, and her
teeth as white as winter's snow. Her hair was a beautiful flaxen--not a
_drab_--but that peculiar sevenpenny-moist-sugar tint which the poets of
old were wont to call golden. Her voice was melodious; her notes in _alt_
were equal to Grisi's: in short, she would have been a very desirable,
loveable young lady, if she had not been a coquette.
Hans met her at a festival given in commemoration of the demise of the
burgomaster's second wife--I beg pardon, I mean in celebration of his
union with his third bride. From that day Hans was a lost barber.
Sleeping, waking, shaving, curling, weaving, or powdering, he thought of
nothing but Agnes. His love-dreams placed him in all kinds of awkward
predicaments. And Agnes--what thought she of the unhappy barber? Nothing,
except that he was a presumptuous puppy, and wore very unfashionable
garments. Hans received an intimation of this latter opinion; and, after
sundry quailings and misgivings, he resolved to dispose of his remaining
stock in trade, and, for once, dress like a gentleman. The measure had
been taken by the tailor, the garments had been basted and tried on, and
Hans was standing at his door in a state of feverish excitement, awaiting
their arrival in a completed condition (as there was to be _fête_ on the
morrow, at which Agnes was to be present), when a stranger requested to be
shaved. Hans wished him at the ---- next barber's; but there was something
so unpleasantly positive in the visitor's appearance, that he had not the
power to object, so politely bowed him into the shop. The stranger removed
his cap, and discovered two very ugly protuberances, one on each side of
his head, and of most unphrenological appearance. Hans commenced
operations--the lather dried as fast as he laid it on, and the razor
emitted small sparks as it encountered the bristles on the stranger's
chin, Hans felt particularly uncomfortable, and not a word had hitherto
passed on either side, when the stranger broke the ice by asking, rather
abruptly, "Have you any schnapps in the house?" Hans jumped like a parched
pea. Without waiting for a reply, the stranger rose and opened the
cupboard. "I never take anything stronger than water," said Hans, in
reply, to the "pshaw!" which broke from the stranger's lips as he smelt at
the contents of a little brown pitcher. "More fool you," replied his
customer. "Here taste that--some of the richest grape-blood of Rheingau;"
and he handed Hans a small flask, which the sober barber respectfully
declined. "Ha! ha! and yet you hope to thrive with the women," said the
stranger. "No wonder that Agnes treats you as she does. But drink, man!
drink!"
The stranger took a pipe, and coolly seated himself again in his chair,
hung one leg over the back of another, and striking his finger briskly
down his nose, elicited a flame that ignited his tobacco, and then he
puffed, and puffed, till every moth in the shop coughed aloud. The
uneasiness of Hans increased, and he looked towards the door with the most
cowardly intention; and, lo! two laughing, dimpled faces, were peeping in
at them. "Ha! how are you?" said the stranger; "come in! come in!" and to
Hans' horror, two very equivocal damsels entered the shop. Hans felt
scandalised, and was about to make a most powerful remonstrance, when he
encountered the eye of his impertinent customer; and, from its sinister
expression, he thought it wise to be silent. One of the damsels seated
herself upon the stranger's knee, whilst the other looked most coaxingly
to the barber; who, however, remained proof to all her winks and blinks,
and "wreathed smiles."
"'Sblitzen!" exclaimed the lady, "the man's an icicle!"
"Hans, you're a fool!" said the stranger; and his enamorata concurred in
the opinion. The flask was again proffered--the eye-artillery again
brought into action, but Hans remained constant to pump-water and Agnes
Flirtitz.
The stranger rubbed the palm of his hand on one of his head ornaments, as
though he were somewhat perplexed at the contumacious conduct of the
barber; then rising, he gracefully led the ladies out. As he stood with
one foot on the step of the door, he turned his head scornfully over his
shoulder, and said, "Hans, you are nothing but--a barber; but before I
eat, you shall repent of your present determination."
"What security have I that you will keep your word?" replied Hans, who
felt emboldened by the outside situation of his customer, and the shop
poker, of which he had obtained possession.
"The best in the world," said the stranger. "Here, take these!" and
placing both rows of his teeth in the hands of the astonished Hans, he
quietly walked up the street with the ladies.
The astonishment of Hans had somewhat subsided, when Stitz, the tailor,
entered with the so-much and the so-long-expected garments. The stranger
was forgotten; the door was bolted, the clothes tried on, and they fitted
to a miracle. A small three-cornered piece of looking-glass was held in
every direction by the delighted tailor, who declared this performance his
_chef-d'oeuvre_ and Hans felt, for the first time in his life, that he
looked like a gentleman. Without a moment's hesitation, or the slightest
hint at discount for ready money, he gave the tailor his last thaler, and
his old suit of clothes, as per contract; shook Stitz's hand at parting,
till every bone of the tailor's fingers ached for an hour afterwards,
bolted the door, and went to bed the poorest, but happiest barber in
Stocksbawler.
After a restless night, Hans rose the next morning with the oddest
sensation in the world. He fancied that the bed was shorter, the chairs
lower, and the room smaller, than on the preceding day; but attributing
this feeling to the feverish sleep he had had, he proceeded to put on his
pantaloons. With great care he thrust his left leg into its proper
division, when, to his horror and amazement, he found that he had grown
_two feet at least during the night_; and that the pantaloons which had
fitted so admirably before, were now only knee-breeches. He rushed to the
window with the intention of breaking his neck by a leap into the street,
when his eye fell upon the strange customer of the preceding day, who was
leaning against the gable-end of the house opposite, quietly smoking his
meerschaum. Hans paused; then thought, and then concluded that having
found an appetite, he had repented of his boast at parting, and had called
for his teeth. Being a good-natured lad, Hans shuffled down stairs, and
opening the door, called him to come over. The stranger obeyed the
summons, but honourably refused to accept of his teeth, except on the
conditions of the wager. To Hans' great surprise he seemed perfectly
acquainted with the phenomenon of the past night, and good-naturedly
offered to go to Stitz, and inform him of the barber's dilemma. The
stranger departed, and in a few moments the tailor arrived, and having
ascertained by his inch measure the truth of Hans' conjectures, bade him
be of good cheer, as he had a suit of clothes which would exactly fit him.
They had been made for a travelling giant, who had either forgotten to
call for them, or suspected that Stitz would require the _gelt_ before he
gave up the broadcloth.
The tailor was right--they did fit--and in an hour afterwards Hans was on
his way to the _fête_. When he arrived there many of his old friends stood
agape for a few moments: but as stranger things had occurred in Germany
than a man growing two feet in one night, they soon ceased to notice the
alteration in Hans' appearance. Agnes was evidently struck with the
improvement of the barber's figure, and for two whole hours did he enjoy
the extreme felicity of making half-a-dozen other young gentlemen
miserable, by monopolising the arm and conversation of the beauty of
Stocksbawler. But pleasure, like fine weather, lasts not for ever; and, as
Hans and Agnes turned the corner of a path, his eye again encountered the
stranger. Whether it was from fear or dislike he knew not, but his heart
seemed to sink, and so did his body; for to his utter dismay, he found
that he had shrunk to his original proportions, and that the garment of
the giant hung about him in anything but graceful festoons. He felt that
he was a human telescope, that some infernal power could elongate or shut
up at pleasure.
The whole band of jealous rivals set up the "Laughing Chorus," and Agnes,
in the extremity of her disgust, turned up her nose till she nearly
fractured its bridge, whilst Hans rushed from the scene of his disgrace,
and never stopped running until he opened the door of his little shop,
threw himself into a chair, and laid his head down upon an old "family
Bible" which chanced to be upon the table. In this position he continued
for some time, when, on raising his head, he found his tormentor and the
two ladies, grouped like the Graces, in the centre of the apartment.
"Well, Scrapshins," said the gentleman, "I have called for my teeth. You
see I have kept my promise." Hans sighed deeply, and the ladies giggled.
"Nay, man, never look so glum! Here, take the flask--forget Agnes, and
console yourself with the love of"--
The conclusion of this harangue must for ever remain a mystery; for Hans,
at this moment, took up the family volume which had served him for a
pillow, and dashed it at the heads of the trio. A scream, so loud that it
broke the tympanum of his left ear, seemed to issue from them
simultaneously--a thick vapour filled the room, which gradually cleared
off, and left no traces of Hans' visitors but three small sticks of stone
brimstone. The truth flashed upon the barber--his visitor was the
far-famed Mephistopheles. Hans packed up his remaining wardrobe, razor,
strop, soap-dish, scissors and combs, and turned his back upon
Stocksbawler forever. Four years passed away, and Hans was again a
thriving man, and Agnes Flirtitz the wife of the doctor of Stocksbawler.
Another year passed on, and Hans was both a husband and a father; but the
coquette who had nearly been his ruin had eloped with the _chasseur_ of a
travelling nobleman.
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