Chapter 5

A DIALOGUE BETWEEN MR. JONES AND THE BARBER

This conversation passed partly while Jones was at dinner in his dungeon, and partly while he was expecting the barber in the parlour. And, as soon as it was ended, Mr. Benjamin, as we have said, attended him, and was very kindly desired to sit down. Jones then filling out a glass of wine, drank his health by the appellation of doctissime tonsorum. “Ago tibi gratias, domine,” said the barber; and then looking very steadfastly at Jones, he said, with great gravity, and with a seeming surprize, as if he had recollected a face he had seen before, “Sir, may I crave the favour to know if your name is not Jones?” To which the other answered, “That it was.”—“Proh deum atque hominum fidem!” says the barber; “how strangely things come to pass! Mr. Jones, I am your most obedient servant. I find you do not know me, which indeed is no wonder, since you never saw me but once, and then you was very young. Pray, sir, how doth the good Squire Allworthy? how doth ille optimus omnium patronus?” —“I find,” said Jones, “you do indeed know me; but I have not the like happiness of recollecting you.”—“I do not wonder at that,” cries Benjamin; “but I am surprized I did not know you sooner, for you sooner, for you are not in the least altered. And pray, sir, may I, without offence, enquire whither you are travelling this way?”—“Fill the glass, Mr. Barber,” said Jones, “and ask no more questions.”—“Nay, sir,” answered Benjamin, “I would not be troublesome; and I hope you don’t think me a man of an impertinent curiosity, for that is a vice which nobody can lay to my charge; but I ask pardon; for when a gentleman of your figure travels without his servants, we may suppose him to be, as we say, in casu incognito, and perhaps I ought not to have mentioned your name.”—“I own,” says Jones, “I did not expect to have been so well known in this country as I find I am; yet, for particular reasons, I shall be obliged to you if you will not mention my name to any other person till I am gone from hence.”—“Pauca verba,” answered the barber; “and I wish no other here knew you but myself; for some people have tongues; but I promise you I can keep a secret. My enemies will allow me that virtue.”—“And yet that is not the characteristic of your profession, Mr. Barber,” answered Jones. “Alas! sir,” replied Benjamin, “Non si male nunc et olim sic erit. I was not born nor bred a barber, I assure you. I have spent most of my time among gentlemen, and though I say it, I understand something of gentility. And if you had thought me as worthy of your confidence as you have some other people, I should have shown you I could have kept a secret better. I should not have degraded your name in a public kitchen; for indeed, sir, some people have not used you well; for besides making a public proclamation of what you told them of a quarrel between yourself and Squire Allworthy, they added lies of their own, things which I knew to be lies.”—“You surprize me greatly,” cries Jones. “Upon my word, sir,” answered Benjamin, “I tell the truth, and I need not tell you my landlady was the person. I am sure it moved me to hear the story, and I hope it is all false; for I have a great respect for you, I do assure you I have, and have had ever since the good-nature you showed to Black George, which was talked of all over the country, and I received more than one letter about it. Indeed, it made you beloved by everybody. You will pardon me, therefore; for it was real concern at what I heard made me ask many questions; for I have no impertinent curiosity about me: but I love good-nature and thence became amoris abundantia erga te.”

Every profession of friendship easily gains credit with the miserable; it is no wonder therefore, if Jones, who, besides his being miserable, was extremely open-hearted, very readily believed all the professions of Benjamin, and received him into his bosom. The scraps of Latin, some of which Benjamin applied properly enough, though it did not savour of profound literature, seemed yet to indicate something superior to a common barber; and so indeed did his whole behaviour. Jones therefore believed the truth of what he had said, as to his original and education; and at length, after much entreaty, he said, “Since you have heard, my friend, so much of my affairs, and seem so desirous to know the truth, if you will have patience to hear it, I will inform you of the whole.”—“Patience!” cries Benjamin, “that I will, if the chapter was never so long; and I am very much obliged to you for the honour you do me.”

Jones now began, and related the whole history, forgetting only a circumstance or two, namely, everything which passed on that day in which he had fought with Thwackum; and ended with his resolution to go to sea, till the rebellion in the North had made him change his purpose, and had brought him to the place where he then was.