Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 August 1889 — NO GREAT MEN WANTED. [ARTICLE]

NO GREAT MEN WANTED.

A Parisian Barber Who Does Nol j i Desire Thefr Custom. Hugo was once one of you* patrons, I believe,” said a .french writer, M. Planche, to Brassier, a bar* ber of Paris. “Alas! yes,” answered the barber. The word and the accent surprised the inquirer. * it not agreeable, then, to have the greatest :man in France—the greatest poet of his century, perhaps—for a customer?" The barber shrugged hia shoulders.' “Ah, monsieur, it is one of the worst tilings that can happen to you, to have a great man for a customer. You see, they are not like other men,” Then, in order to justify his paradox, he related* a chapter of personal experience. “One day a great lady, Mme. de X whose hair 1 had dressed, and who was much pleased with my work, said she would recommend me to thirty or more of her friends; and in a day or two she sent me a pape r containing all the names and addresses of the people, with her recommendation of me at the bottom." “The recommendation of Mme. de X ! why, that was as good as a fortune to you, my good man," said M. Planche. “It might have been, StrTbut Tor ®C _ V ictor Hugo. He was here the day I received it; he had sat down in the very chair you are sitting in now. , I had just put a towel round his neck, when he seemed to be seized with some great thought and beckoned me to let him alone. He drew a pencil from his pocket, took a sheet of paper from this table here and began writing. “He had been writing about five minutes when another customer came in. My men were all busy, so, seeing that M. Hugo had stopped writing to sharpen his pencil, I stepped up to him and said: * “ ‘M. Hugo, if you will permit me to begin with you—l am in a hurry.’ “Um! I'm in a hurry, too,’ said he. “Then he got up all at once, paper and pencil in hand, and started out of the shop. I called after him that he lad the towel round his neck, and he took it off. But I didn’t mind tho paper, because I did’t know what it was. “But iu the afternoon I wanted the japer which Mme. de X had given me, and couldn’t find it. One of my men said it had beeu lying there on the table. That was the paper that M. Victor Hugo had taken for his notes! “ ‘Ah, yes,’ he said. ‘I remember; I lad no sooner got into the house than !' had another and much better idea, and as I had, therefore, no further need, of your paper, I— ’ - —— “ ‘Threw it into the fire?’ “I am sorry to say I did!’ ”