In the evening we went to a meeting in a large hall. It was full of working men and working women; it looked as if there were not room to move, so crowded were the seats and gangways. They were tremendously enthusiastic, many of them shook me by the hand, and the thought of them remained for a long time in my heart.
The next morning I took leave of my two kind hostesses. Their last injunction to me was, the agitation of my impending task having affected my appetite, “You should eat more; mind you eat more.”
I accomplished my disguise in Manchester, going to a different shop for every part of it, for safety’s sake. I had noticed several times while I was in prison that prisoners of unprepossessing appearance obtained least favour, so I was determined to put ugliness to the test. I had my hair cut short and parted, in early Victorian fashion, in smooth bands down the side of my face. This, combined with the resentful bristles of my newly-cut back hair, produced a curious effect. I wished to bleach my hair as well, but the hairdresser refused point-blank to do this, and the stuff that I bought for the purpose at a chemist’s proved quite ineffective. A tweed hat, a long green cloth coat, which I purchased for 8_s._ 6_d._, a woollen scarf and woollen gloves, a white silk neck-kerchief, a pair of pince-nez spectacles, a purse, a net-bag to contain some of my papers, and my costume was complete. I had removed my own initials from my underclothing, and bought the ready-made initials “J. W.” to sew on in their stead, but to my regret I had not time to achieve this finishing touch.
All this sounds simple enough, but I suppose it was due to my preoccupation of mind that I have never known a day’s shopping fraught with such complications and difficulties. At the frowzy little hairdresser’s shop, the only one that seemed to me inconspicuous enough for so important a part of my disguise, the attendant was busy, and I had to return in an hour’s time. I told him that I was going a journey and wanted the hair short, since that would be less trouble. He cut it off. Then I wanted what remained to be worn in a parting, with the hair falling straight on either side. This part of the process was most absurd, for that way of wearing my hair was obviously disfiguring to me. “Ah! now that looks very becoming,” said the hairdresser, and with that I left the shop in haste.