Barry Pain

“ Young Scotsburg always struck me as an indiscreet man. Of course, my rule is that none of my clients is at liberty to mention either my name and address or profession to anybody without very good reason to believe that the person to whom the disclosure is made will in his turn become a client, and that, I understand, is not your intention? ”

“ I mentioned the picture.
"The Scotsburgs are always hard up and have been hard up for two generations. They have always had enormous families, and, as a rule, nineteen out of every twenty Scotsburgs are black sheep. The present Duke is the blackest of the black."
"What has that got to do with his limp?" I asked—"with one leg being shorter than the other?"
"One leg never was any shorter than the other, and he never limped, except of his own free will. It was I who got him the reputation for a slight difference in the length of his legs and for the slight limp. ”

“ I take, say, a passably plain woman. If she wishes to be beautiful she probably does a little cucumber-cream business. She is quite elementary and childish, and it takes her no further. The first thing I teach her is to behave as if she were beautiful. All beautiful women have a distinct manner of their own. There are seventy-four special points to be noted in the behavior of a beautiful woman. My client has to learn these and practice them daily until she adopts them unconsciously. Then my agents begin to work. In one place and another they say boldly that my client is a beautiful woman. ”

“ The changes that I effect are always changes in character. I do not make a person young or beautiful. I make people think that they are young or beautiful. If it could all be done with a sovereign's worth of facial massage, cucumber cream, rice powder and rot of that kind, they would not come to me. ”

“ They do not all come for whitewash, of course. I have known a man to wish to become blackwashed. I had to procure for a young curate of twenty-seven, with no vices and no knowledge of the world, the reputation of a seasoned roué. ”

“ No more do I; no more does anybody else that I have asked. I came upon it in an income-tax paper, brought to me because there was some irregularity in it. The man paying the tax declares that his income is derived from the profession of character-changer. ”

“ I shall never take another client with a chin as small as that; at any rate, not without a substantial money guarantee. Indiscretions like this would very soon ruin my business. However, I shall be revenged on Scotsburg, because I shall make him lose his bet. I shall tell you all.
"There is a great deal of discontent in the world," said Mr. Franks, leaning back in his chair, crossing his legs and lighting a cigar. ”

“ My business is one of the few in London in which there is still plenty of room for competition, but the competitor will have to be a man of tact, of varied knowledge, of considerable courage and of absolute discretion. ”

“ I did not like to refer to that delicate question of the income tax, though I had noticed the discrepancy in figures. I said: "I should not have thought there were so many people in England anxious to be thought different from what they really are and willing to pay hard cash to effect the change in their reputation."
"Quite so," said Mr. Franks; "most people are of your opinion, and that is why I have the field to myself ”

“ One is dropped by accident at the charity bazaar at which he is making large purchases. But that is merely a trifle—only one of the many possible ingredients of the whitewash. I do not give you the entire recipe for the fluid, because, speaking candidly, the business is a good business and I want to keep it to myself. Many of my patrons are actors, many are parsons, many are authors. ”

“ Edward Franks, character-changer; and his terms are high. I have made a special study of this business. I enable a man to produce temporarily, and sometimes even permanently, the impression that he wishes. I employ more agents than any private detective in London. I could give you a list of some twenty journals that are subsidized by me. My income for the last year, to give you the exact figures, was £17,425.8.11, and for years past it has never been under ten thousand. ”

“ Franks, "as to be sometimes impossible. Women who have lost their youth want it back again; women who have lost their beauty want it back again. Very often I decline the case altogether. Sometimes I succeed. I made a special study of that branch."
"And," I continued, "I suppose you supplement your income considerably from the sale of toilet articles which you have discovered to be specially suited for the purpose?" ”

“ It is so like her that it cannot be mistaken, and yet it is undeniably beautiful. And you know that most people think that photographs cannot lie. Every woman has some good point, and I am careful to note what my client's good point is. ”

“ Consider, for instance, the shady type of city man who, at the age of forty-five, has made his pile in more or less doubtful ways and has given up business. He retires to the country. He hunts two days a week, and nobody speaks to him. ”

“ Plenty of people call on him, but not the people that he wants. He would like to stand for Parliament, but there are too many ugly stories about him. That is a simple and very usual case. A man wants whitewashing. ”

“ Suppose, for instance, that the widow and the orphan were defrauded by the Gilt-Edged Investment Association, and our city man is generally known to have been himself, by himself, the Gilt-Edged Investment Association. ”

“ Of course, no woman who comes to me with this request is allowed to manage her own dresses. I have a little Frenchwoman who works exclusively for me and has a marvelous talent in arranging things of that kind. ”