``Fritz,''
(or Hans) they would have said, ``was a bit on last night, a bit full
up,'' or whatever phrase they use to touch on drunkenness; and the
thing would have been forgotten. We all have our fancies. But this
young fool wanted to get his fancy mixed up with practice: that's
where he was mad. And in Potsdam, of all places.
He probably tried his friends first, young barbers at the Court and
others of his own standing. None of them were fools enough to be seen
going about like that. They had jobs to lose. A Court barber is one
thing, a man who cuts ordinary hair is quite another. Why should they
become outcasts because their friend chose to be mad?
He probably tried his inferiors then, but they would have been timid
folk; they must have seen the thing was absurd, and of course daren't
risk it. Again, why should they?
Did he try to get some noble then to patronize his invention? Probably
the first refusals he had soon inflamed his madness more, and he threw
caution insanely to the winds, and went straight to the Emperor.
It was probably about the time that the Emperor dismissed Bismarck;
certainly the drawings of that time show him still with a sane
moustache.
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