A MORNING SKETCH.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1926, 27 April 1880, Page 2

A MORNING SKETCH.

He wanted his razor strop. He had just lathered his chin in the most eihanstiTO manner, and was preparing to put a finer edge on hia razor. Now, the razor strop was always kept in the washstand drawer, the one nearest the wall. He fancied he always put it there himself ; certainly he had made a rule to do so. He had already taken out the razor, and he now put hia hand mechanically into the drawer for the strop. Ho strop was there. His hand only came in contact with hair of a peculiarly exasperating thickness. “By Jove!” he thought to himself, as hs was opening the other drawer, “ what a singularly quality of the female mind that is ! Not to be able to distinguish between two drawers for two days consecutively. Yet I would wager anything Fanny would swear X had put the strop in there myself.” He was groping discursively among what appeared to be the stock in trade of a sma'l friseur, but nothing so palpable as a razor strop resisted his touch through the silky fluffiness of the general contents. “ Where is the confounded thing ? ” he exclaimed, staring about the room vaguely, but like a man whose angry passions are very near the surface. “ Why can’t they leave my things alone, I should like to know ? Fanny I Fanny!” ho called over the banister, with more accent than was absolutely necessary. “ What the deuce have you done with my razor strop f " The serene voice of conscious rectitude was heard in fluty tones replying—“ln the washstand drawer, love—the one nearest the wall.” Now there was something in these fluty tones of Fanny’s just at that moment that suggested to her husband a second trial of the drawer. For when Fanny threw a certain “timbre” into her voice, he usually found that she had the maddening quality of being right in regard to the subject under discussion. Back he strode into the room, with an uncomfortable stiffness about his chin as of dry soap, and pulled the drawer out—nay, pulled both drawers out, and then turned them upside down upon the floor. Positively no strop! By this time there was a grimness in the man’s demeanor visible to the meanest capacity, and particularly noticeable in his walk, as he strode a second time to the head of the stair*.

“Fanny!” he shouted in loud, impetuous accents. “ I tell you again it isn’t there! What in thunder do you mean by always meddling with my shaving things ? ” The answer wag perhaps a trifle more staccato than before. “ Tour strop is in the drawer, my dear. I put it away myself yesterday morning, when I found that, as usual, you had left everything on the dressing table.” “Drawer!” he is believed to have muttered at this point. “ I’ll drawer her!” and he fairly jumped back into the room, and dashing at the bureau, he began throwing the contents of each drawer, one after the other, out upon the floor, with an awful impartiality that knew no distinctions. But after exhausting these receptacles, and shaking and stamping upon each article they had contained, no razor strop presented its simple proportions to his blazing sight. “Fanny!’* he yelled over the banisters fer the third time, in a voice of thunder that curdled the blood in the veins of his little children as they sat at their early porridge. “ Fanny !” And then his wife cams upstairs and stood at the door while he danced upon the scene of devastation, and brandished a curious weapon in his hand, after the fashion of a fearful Feejee, or other untamed denizen of wilds too gruesome to name. “ This is past believing!” he observed. “ This is the kind of method and order yon would expect in Bedlam. Book round this room, will you ? By Jove! it is too much, took you, madame, I’ll dine at the club after this —and sleep and breakfast there, too! Then perhaps my razor strop, ha! ha! will be forthcoming when I dare to treat myself to the luxury of a shave. Ha! I’m a monster, of course, to presume to want to shave in my own house. I admit that, but for more curiosity’s sake now, I should like to know where the strop is. The coffee’s done by this time, and the bacon, sodden, so a few moments spent in cheerful conversation can’t hurt the breakfast. Did Freddy take it for a hammer, or has Flossy dressed it up for a doll ? Or did you give it to an aesthetic tramp, as you did that file of “ Grip ? ” Pausing an instant for breath, Fanny took the opportunity of making a single remark. “Are you speaking of the razor strop in your hand,” asked she softly, “ or of some other one?” A peculiar tingling sensation seemed to creep along his arm as he heard these words, and he appeared to shrink together, and to measure several inches less than usual in every direction. But as ho vigorously resumed the operation of sharpening his razor, which he remembered now he had dropped while he applied the lather, ho returned angrily, “ Why the deuce didn’t you say sa before f ”