Then the master followed after him, razor in hand,
and shaved the waiting countenances in turn. Flies that looked
as though they properly belonged in a livery stable were buzzing
about; and there was a prevalent odor which made me think that all
the sick pomade in the world had come hither to spend its last
declining hours. I said to myself that this place would bear
further study; that some day, when I felt particularly hardy and
daring, I would come here and be shaved, and afterward would write
a piece about it and sell it for money. So, the better to fix its
location in my mind, I glanced up at the street sign and, behold!
I was hard by Drury Lane, where Sweet Nelly once on a time held
her court.
Another time I stopped in front of a fruiterer's, my eye having
been caught by the presence in his window of half a dozen
draggled-looking, wilted roasting ears decorated with a placard
reading as follows:
AMERICAN MAIZE OR INDIAN CORN
A VEGETABLE - TO BE BOILED AND THEN
EATEN
I was remarking to myself that these Britishers were surely a
strange race of beings - that if England produced so delectable a
thing as green corn we in America would import it by the shipload
and serve it on every table; whereas here it was so rare that they
needs must label it as belonging to the vegetable kingdom, lest
people should think it might be an animal - when I chanced to look
more closely at the building occupied by the fruiterer and saw
that it was an ancient house, half-timbered above the first floor,
with a queer low-browed roof.
