Grocott & Ward, comps. Grocott’s Familiar Quotations, 6th ed. 189-?.
Razors
A fellow in a market town,
Most musical cried razors up and down,
And offer’d twelve for eighteenpence;
Which certainly seem’d wondrous cheap,
And for the money quite a heap,
As ev’ry man would buy with cash and sense.
Peter Pindar.—Ode III. Verse 4.
Sirrah! I tell you, you’re a knave,
To cry up razors that can’t shave.
Friend! quoth the razor man, “I am not a knave;”
As for the razors you have bought
Upon my soul I never thought
That they would shave.
“What were they made for then, you Dog,” he cries;
“Made,” quoth the fellow with a smile, “to sell.”
Peter Pindar.—Ode III. Verse 4.