"POSTERS."
It was the same sad story at every club you entered; bereaved married men and deserted bachelors stood mopingly on the hearthrugs or flopped in limp despair on the big chairs. Every day the papers had been filled with advertisements and "pars" and articles about the College of Beauty; flaring posters, with pictures of a lady, before and after a course of the College, covered London: the before lady had wild red hair, a pug-nose, a heavy squint, one immense front tooth, lips like a negro's, and the figure of a sack of potatoes; the after lady—supposed to be the same person—had a Grecian nose, great blue eyes, wavy brown hair, and an ideal figure. Every day the crisis became more grave; the great transatlantic lines had hired extra ships to fill with ladies proceeding to New York: it had been made "worth the while" of several eminent London physicians to prescribe a course of "New York." The sight of a lady in the London streets was becoming more and more rare. Men in a hopeless state of dejection, even of melancholy insanity, roved aimlessly about the pavements. The club-houses had to hire extra accommodation for men whose homes, bereft of the feminine element, had become loathsome and abhorrent to them.
Beautiful suburban villas were left deserted, the dust growing visibly upon the furniture; domestic life among the upper and middle classes had ceased to exist. The milliners' shops were closed; suburban tradesmen were becoming bankrupt; feminine parts at the theatres were played by youths as in old times, while the stalls and dress-circle presented an unbroken line of wretched men, clad in tweed suits, dressing-gowns—anything; so demoralized does man become the instant the refining influence of woman is withdrawn.
There was another board-meeting of the spinsters at Miss Cloot's. Their number was reduced by two recalcitrants, who had been unable to resist the New York fever and had deserted the ranks.
"Idiots!" said Miss Cloot.
Miss Cloot rose at the head of the table and said:—
"Ladies, I need hardly tell you that the operations of our society have been, and are, a complete success. In the course of another week there will not be a woman of any position, except ourselves, in the Metropolitan area. Our secretary, Miss McSwinger, will read to you the numbers of embarcations for New York for the week ending yesterday; and Miss Gorgonia V. Nickerbocker, our New York factotum, is now present among us, and will set before you the statistics of the hiring and fitting up of new annexes of the College of Beauty, which at present accommodates four million seven hundred thousand and odd ladies.
"You will recall to mind how, at our first and preliminary meeting, I said to you: 'What I have to say is, that if this College of Beauty, set forth in this newspaper cutting, does not exist, why, it shall exist; and we will create it.' Whether the original College ever did exist I do not know, but ours does. Ladies, it was an idea such as has seldom occurred to woman since the beginning of time. You came wisely forward and threw in your money with mine to set this great work on foot; our money has now gone; but, by reason of the term-fees paid by the pupils, the College is now entirely self-supporting.
