"The scenes are in Italy, Time 1868. "Yours, Very Respectfully, etc., etc., etc., "---- ---- ---- "Author. "P. S.--I inclose my card, I don't be at Home every day, but am at home nearly every evening bet. 8 and 10 o'clock. "(I did not have my Play Printed yet.)" CHAPTER XIX. "MASHERS" AND "MASHING." [Illustration: A BOWERY "MASHER."] The masher is a remarkable creature. He hovers everywhere, from the market-place to the meeting-house and from the promenade to the theatre. He is many-phased and many-faced, and may come from the slums or be the son of a first-class preacher of the Gospel. The class has been termed gunaikophagists by some fellow reckless alike of the feelings of philologists and of the jaws of the rising generation, who says it means woman-eaters, but may be less poly-syllabically styled corner loafers and miserable scoundrels, who live on the curbs and in some instances hug the wall--have a pardonable affection, considering that they part their hair in the middle, for malacca, bamboo, and rubber sticks--and last, but not least, some indulge a precocious vanity by planting eye-glasses across their noses. These are, par excellence, the cane-and-eyeglass friends, and they remind one of nothing else in the world than a sickly looking cross between a saw-buck and a half-resuscitated dried herring. The masher's sole ambition, is to win hearts, which he hopes to do by staring ladies out of countenance, and which he often does in a most flagrant and audacious manner. There are young and old of this class, and they are of all grades, from the young man who negotiates with you over a counter for a paper of pins or a dozen shoestrings, up to his employer, and from that up the monetary scale to the man who wholesales the employer the pins which the "mashing" salesman disposes of a nickle's worth at a time. Sandwiched between these at proper, or rather improper, intervals are the "What d'ye soy?" crowd, the "toughs" wearing high felt hats turned up with care before and behind, and, without exception, sporting the inevitable tight jeans breeches. Their influence extends only to a certain class--to the concert and variety dives--and it is unfortunate to the poor girls, outside of this class, who fall a prey to these ruthless "mashers." [Illustration: LADY MACBETH. LADY MACBETH:--"Infirm of purpose! Give me the daggers; the sleeping, and the dead Are but as pictures: 'tis the eye of childhood That fears a painted devil." _Macbeth, Act II., Scene 2._ ]