Page:The Female-Impersonators 1922 book scan.djvu/118

92 give the exact words used by an office associate to describe my figure after the age of forty-three.)

Nearly all my professional life has been under my legal name. It has been completely apart from my avocation of female-impersonator. I have sometimes thought I might be an instance of the dual personality recognized by psychologists. Only, while living out either side of my own duality, I have always had a complete memory of the other side and recognized the oneness of my ego in my two widely opposed careers.

In my middle twenties, I lived under three names and personalities. I worked seven hours a day for a legal journal as "Earl Lind." Because under that name I had called on its editor to persuade him to publish my, representing myself as merely its author's agent. The editor was in his sixties, and happening just then to need an assistant, immediately hired me, never questioning the truthfulness of my representations as to who I was. He was at the time also one of the leading criminal lawyers in New York City. He employed me in all sorts of confidential capacities and let me into many of the secrets of his clients. Of course I would never have proved false to his trust, even though he never knew who I really was and where I lived. I attended court with him as his clerk. I learned all the intricacies of establishing a false alibi for a wealthy androgyne whom he represented in a case originating in blackmail by an adolescent. I was his assistant while he was defending a client from prosecution by Anthony Comstock, when the latter gentleman was personally acquainted with me under the name of "Earl Lind," and knew I was trying to get the