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Leacock, Stephen, 1869-1944

"The Hohenzollerns in America"


All we ask is to be let alone (don't put that in your
notes as from me, but you can say it), let us alone to
go on quietly piling up income till we get the Germans
licked. But if you start to take away our income, you
discourage us, you knock all the patriotism out of us.
To my mind, a man's income and his patriotism are the
same thing. But, of course, don't say that I said that."

The just complaint of my barber, as expressed in the
pauses of his operations.
"I'm not saying nothing against the Government (any facial
massage this morning?). I guess they know their own
business, or they'd ought to, anyway. But I kick at all
this talk against the barber business in war time (will
I singe them ends a bit?). The papers are full of it,
all the time. I don't see much else in them. Last week
I saw where a feller said that all the barber shops ought
to be closed up (bay rum?) till the war was over. Say,
I'd like to have him right here in this chair with a
razor at his throat, the way I have you! As I see it,
the barber business is the most necessary business in
the whole war. A man'll get along without everything
else, just about, but he can't get along without a shave,
can he?--or not without losing all the pep and self-respect
that keeps him going.


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