Page:The Female-Impersonators 1922 book scan.djvu/178

152 see here to-night even wearing a disgusting beard! Of course they do not wear it out of liking. They merely consider it a lesser evil than the horrible razor or excruciating wax-mask.

"We ourselves are in the detested trousers because having only just arrived. We keep our feminine wardrobe in lockers upstairs so that our every-day circles can not suspect us of female-impersonation. For they have such an irrational horror of it!"

On the basis of different visits to an upper room permanently rented by the, I am going to build up a typical hour's conversation in order to disclose into what channels the thoughts of ultra-androgynes run when half-a-score find themselves together. The reason for its unnatural ring is that I omit the nine-tenths that were prattle, retaining only the cream that I consider of scientific value.

It was about eight o'clock on an evening of April, 1895. Some of the hermaphroditoi were still in male apparel; some changing to feminine evening dress and busy with padding and the powder-puff; some in their completed evening toilette ready to descend to the beer-garden below to await a young-blood friend.

I do not recall that a single hermaphroditos was man enough to use tobacco, or even to spit. They affected foreign languages, particularly French. I recall one whose favorite method in beginning a conversation was: "Mes cheris,qu' est ce que c' est que vous savez de nouvelles?"

A second: "Have you observed the new styles?