“Much obliged, dear fellow,” said Hambridge, hoisting his eyebrows and letting them drop in his characteristic manner. “Some of my views may possess originality—even freshness when expressed, as I invariably express ’em, in a perfectly commonplace manner.”
“No, no!” again exclaimed the pimply-faced owner of the deep bass voice.
“As to the Ethics of the Crinoline, now,” went on Hambridge, “I observe that an energetic effort is being made—in a certain quarter and amongst a certain _coterie_—to revive the discarded hoops of 1855–66. They did their best to impart a second vitality to the Early Victorian poke-bonnet some years ago. Why did the effort fail, dear fellers? Because, with their accompanying garniture of modesty, blushes were considered necessary to the feminine equipment at the date I have mentioned. And because blushes—I speak on the most reliable authority—are more difficult to simulate than tears. Also because, looking down the pink silk-lined tunnel of the poke-bonnet of 1855–66, it was impossible for you, as an ordinary male creature, to decide whether the rosy glow invading the features of the woman you adored—we adored women, dear fellows, at that period—was genuine or the reverse. There you have in a nutshell the reason why the poke-bonnet was not welcomed at the dawn of the twentieth century. Modesty and blushes, dear fellers, are out of date.”
Hambridge leaned back in his chair with an air of mild triumph, running his movable eye—the left was rigidly fixed behind his monocle—over the faces of the listeners.
“Will the woman of the Twentieth Century willingly enclose her legs—they were limbs in 1855–66—once more in the steel-barred calico cage, fifteen feet in circumference, if not more, that contained the woman of the Early Victorian Era? Dear fellers, the question furnishes material for an interestin’ debate. In my young days there was no sittin’ in ladies’ pockets, no cosy-cornering, so to put it. You invariably kept at a respectful distance from the young creature whom you, more or less ardently—we could be ardent in those days—desired to woo and win, simply because you couldn’t get nearer. You didn’t approach her mother for permission to pay your addresses-her mother was encased in a similar panoply. You went to her father, because you could get at him—there you have the plain, simple reason of the custom of ‘askin’ Papa.’ And if you were reprehensibly desirous of eloping with another fellow’s wife, you didn’t express your wish in words. You wrote a letter invitin’ her to fly with you—we called it flying in those days—and dropped it in the post. If the lady disapproved, she dropped you. If not, she bolted with you in a chaise with four or a pair—and even then her crinoline kept you at a distance. You were no more at liberty to put your arm round her waist than if the eye of Early Victorian Society had been glued upon you.