"'Well--didn't you see her face, all this time?'
"'No, I tell you; she had one of those curs--I beg pardon--_curious_ veils that you women are so fond of playing _beau peep_ with! But her shawl fell off, and you'd better believe there was a figure under it even _those feet_ might be proud to carry.'
"'She got into an omnibus--didn't I wish I was the mat in the bottom of it? No room for another soul, outside or in, or I should have followed her. Wish I might wake up and find myself _married to those feet_, some morning!'
"'Fan--these long skirts are very effective weapons in the hands of a pretty woman. They are provocative of curiosity. Now Bloomers--ugh! (a man is disenchanted at once;) but a nice, plump, little, cunning foot, creeping in and out, _mice-like_, from under those graceful folds--depend upon it, no woman who knows anything, will ever shorten her skirts. A coquette does as much execution with them as a Spanish dame with her fan and mantilla.'
"'Many a woman, when she thinks it worth her while, 'gets up' an imaginary quagmire, and, presto! _there's_ a pair of feet for you! and then down goes the long skirt again, and a man's senses with it. Jupiter! _don't_ they understand it?'
"'Tom, if you was worth the trouble, I'd box your ears! Look out the window there, I _suppose_ that's a man; a _cane and a coat-tail walking behind a moustache_! Well, here's the thermometer up to boiling point, and his coat is buttoned up tight to his jugular, _to show his chest_ to the best possible advantage. I don't believe if he was stifling, he'd let his throat out of prison. Oh, _vanity!_ thy name is _man_! I sat here at the window, laughing till I had fits, to see that fellow _prink_, the other morning, and make himself beautiful. The _attitudes_, he practised! the different styles of _hair_ he 'got _up_,' and brushed _down!_ the neck-ties he tried on! the way his _bosom-pin_ wouldn't _locate_ to his satisfaction! were all excruciating to my risibles.'
"'Well, Fan, you've no mercy, so I might as well say--I suppose, as to the comparative vanity of men and women,--it's six of one and half-a-dozen of the other; but to change the subject. Do you know I was thinking, to-day, that _dentistry_ might be made a very fascinating occupation if one could but choose one's customers?'