Page:The woman in battle .djvu/75

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A TRANSFORMATION.
63


be very soon. After paying my bill, and giving the proprietor to understand that I was about to leave the city, my friend managed to get me into my new quarters without my being observed by any one. Telling me that he would take care to prevent any interruption while I was making my toilet, he retired and left me to myself.

I immediately proceeded to change my garments, and ere a great many minutes had elapsed, I was transformed into a man, so far as it was possible for clothing to transform me. When I was ready I called my friend, and asked his opinion of the figure I cut. He admitted that I was not a bad looking specimen of a man, considering I had only been about five minutes, and thought that in time I should be able to do credit to the name I bore and the clothes I wore.

The only regret I had in making up my disguise, was the necessity for parting with my long and luxuriant hair. This gave me a real pang ; but there was no help for it, and I submitted with as good a grace as I could muster, while my friend played the part of tonsorial artist with a pair of shears. He trimmed my hair tolerably close, and said that it would answer until 1 could visit a barber's shop with him, and be initiated into some of the mysteries of such a peculiarly masculine place of resort. Before going to the barber r s, however, he made me promenade the room, practising a masculine gait, until I had acquired it tolerably well, and gave me a great number of very minute instructions about the proper manner of conducting myself so that my sex would not be suspected. He particularly enjoined me to watch his actions closely at the barber's, in the drinking saloons, the billiard rooms, and the other places he intended conducting me to, for the purpose of informing me with regard to some masculine habits and ways of acting, talking, and thinking.

At the Barber's.

A carriage having been sent for, we were driven to the shop of an old Virginian negro barber, whom my friend was accustomed to patronize. Entering first, he took off his hat and coat, and hung them up, and throwing himself into one of the barber's chairs, asked to have his hair trimmed and his face shaved. I followed his movements as closely as I was able, and was soon in my shirt sleeves and in possession of another chair, with an obsequious colored individual stand-