Page:Teleny, or The Reverse of the Medal, t. II.djvu/27

 dabbed with rouge. He was quite beardless. For a moment, I doubted whether he was a man or a woman; but when he stopped again before the column I was fully persuaded of his sex.

"Some one else came with mincing steps, and shaking his buttocks, from behind one of these pissoirs. He was an old, wiry, simpering man, as shrivelled as a frost-bitten pippin. His cheeks were very hollow, and his projecting cheek bones very red; his face was shaven and shorn, and he wore a wig with long, fair, flaxen locks.

"He walked in the posture of the Venus de Medici; that is, with one hand on his middle parts, and the other on his breast. His looks were not only very demure, but there was an almost maidenly coyness about the old man that gave him the appearance of a virgin-pimp.

"He did not stare, but cast a side-long glance at me as he went by. He was met by a workman—a strong and sturdy fellow, either a butcher or a smith by trade. The old man would evidently have slunk by unperceived, but the workman stopped him. I could not hear what they said, for though they were but a few steps away, they spoke in that