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Them as have nothing but their good looks may do for the mashers, but these chaps look out for the girls who'll bring in the money. What's a pretty face to them compared with the handling of a big salary every week? That's the sort Carlotta's husband belongs to." "Well, the life will suit him down to the ground." "And jealous with it, if you please.

In Buck's terminology, it was identified as "The Centre Street mashers": those pimply, weak-faced, bad-eyed young men who congregate at prominent corners every afternoon, especially Saturdays, to smirk at the working-girls, and to pass, wherever they could, from their murmured, "Hello, Kiddo," and "Where you goin', baby?" to less innocent things.

Yer little donkey injin, and yer little sugar mashers, and yer little lemon squeezer of a crusher yah! It's a grocery store ye've got, and not a stamp mill. Loose off yer nut on the lower jaw, man; loose her off!" McGinnis was a man of action. In a moment he was tapping at the clenched bolt with the head of his bright steel hammer.

The aristocracy had already in the main adopted the 'jumping-Jesus' principle; though here and there one like Crum who was an 'honourable' stood starkly languid for that gambler's Nirvana which had been the summum bonum of the old 'dandies' and of 'the mashers' in the eighties. And round Crum were still gathered a forlorn hope of blue-bloods with a plutocratic following.

In five minutes you meet Spanish officers; nuns in broad-leaved white bonnets; a bearded sergeant nursing a baby; bare-legged, sun-burnished Moors; pink-and-white cheeked ladies'-maids from Kent; local mashers in such outrageously garish tweeds; stiff brass-buttoned turnkeys; Jews in skull-cap and Moslems in fez; and while you are lost in admiration of a burly negro, turbaned and in grass-green robe, with face black and shiny as a newly-polished stove, you are hustled by a sailor on cordial terms with himself who is vigorously attempting to whistle "Garry Owen."

In 1880 arose the sect that was soon to win for itself the title of 'The Mashers. What this title exactly signified I suppose no two etymologists will ever agree. But we can learn clearly enough, from the fashion-plates of the day, what the Mashers were in outward semblance; from the lampoons, their mode of life.

"`Adjutant Bird," Janet read presently from a legend on one of the compartments of a cage devoted to birds, and surveying the somewhat dissolute occupant. "Why, he's just like one of those tall mashers who stay at the Wilmot and stand on the sidewalk, travelling men, you know." "Say-isn't he?" Eda agreed. "Isn't he pleased with himself, and his feet crossed!"

Unlike the dandies of the Georgian era, they pretended to no classic taste and, wholly contemptuous of the Aesthetes, recognised no art save the art of dress. Much might be written about the Mashers. The restaurant destined to be, in after years, so salient a delight of London was not known to them, but they were often admirable upon the steps of clubs.

"'Adjutant Bird," Janet read presently from a legend on one of the compartments of a cage devoted to birds, and surveying the somewhat dissolute occupant. "Why, he's just like one of those tall mashers who stay at the Wilmot and stand on the sidewalk, travelling men, you know." "Say-isn't he?" Eda agreed. "Isn't he pleased with himself, and his feet crossed!"

Had the talk suddenly swung over to amateur theatricals? Lady Cynthia was a terrible puller of legs. "Did you ever hear of Madge Carlyle?" she asked, "or was she before your time?" "I have heard of her." She was a famous London cocotte in the days when mashers wore whiskers and "Champagne Charlie" was sung.