ladies’ dressing-rooms, on the other hand, a more distrustful and whispering silence prevails, a calm which is only broken by the running to and fro of the dressers, the clattering of the curling-tongs, and the rustling of the black-beetles, for these little creatures, you must know, gather in the ladies’ dressing-rooms because they find sugary sweets there.
We, however, as is quite correct and proper, will confine ourselves to the gentlemen’s dressing-rooms; admire the knights’ hose and doublets, heavily wadded and padded, which are hanging up on the walls; weigh in the hand the theatrical swords and helmets with their flaunting plumes; get into the way of the dresser who is pulling on the high riding-boots of the half-naked hero; of the hairdresser who is busy curling the hero’s wig; and of the tailor who is busy squeezing the hero’s waist in while fastening up his tight doublet. We sit down on his shirt and clothes, and to the best of our ability, add to the general disorder which develops between
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