Page:A hairdresser's experience in high life.djvu/66

68 they should be servile, but politeness costs nothing, and often gains a good deal. I myself upon several occasions dressed the hair of a person who had once been my fellow-servant, and though she then had her carriage and livery, she certainly lost nothing by being kind and polite to me. I do not intend to con-vey the idea by this, that I should have exposed her former humble position, if she had been otherwise; but I repeat that she lost nothing by her politeness.

I could have pointed out the daughter of a fishman, in Washington Market, N. Y., in one of the greatest dashers at Saratoga, if I had chosen; and in another dasher, who was the wife of a man in high position, the former keeper of a house of ill-fame; but though she did not obtain access to the high circles of Saratoga, she conducted herself with perfect propriety, and offended no one in any way. It is, though, astonishing to me how such people rise in the world as they do, and link themselves to respectable circles.

There is but little that has passed at Saratoga for years, that I have not known myself; even the village has its romances, and the hair-dresser is everywhere chatted with, and confided to. Indeed, I have often wished I could absent myself from conversations that I knew ought to be confidential, and that I had no business to hear; but I could not tell ladies to shut their mouths, and hence I was much oftener the receptacle of secrets than I desired to be. I often wished that they had better sense; though, after all, I did not care much what they did, so they paid me my wages. I could not help laughing, though, sometimes; and I was particularly amused at a quarrel