“Mademoiselle should recall the new riding hat had been too small, had been returned for blocking.”

“Tres bien, le vieux donc, vite!”

“Oh, mon Dieu, il fut donne.”  A quick blow stopped further explanation.

“Quelle que cruche, que cette fille,” then a moment’s silence, a roving about of the small hot eyes, and with a bound she tore from an American artist’s hand his big soft felt hat.  Turning the flapping brim up, she fastened it to the crown in three places with jewelled pins, tore a bunch of velvet from her dinner corsage, secured it directly in front, and clapping the hat on the back of her head, dashed downstairs and was in the saddle with a scrabble and a bound, and away like mad, followed by two men, who were her unwilling companions.  Riding longer than she had intended, she returned in broad daylight.  All Paris was agog over her odd head gear.  Her impudent, laughing face caught their fancy yet again, and she trotted down from the Arc de Triomphe between two rippling little streams of comment and admiration, with, “Comme elle est belle!” “Quelle aplomb!” “Matin, quelle chic!” “Elle est forte gentille!” “C’est le coup de grace!” “Le chapeau! le chapeau!” “La belle Pearl! la belle Pearl!” reaching her distinctly at every other moment.

And that was the origin of the back-turned, broad-brimmed hat that had such vogue before the arrival of the Gainsborough or picture hat.

If I were a young actress, I would rather be noted for acting than for originating a new style of garment; but it is a free country, thank God, and a big one, with room for all of us, whatever our preferences.  And though the young actress has the clothes question heavy on her mind now, and finds it hard to keep up with others and at the same time out of debt, she has the right to hope that by and by she will be so good an actress, and so valuable to the theatre, that a fat salary will make the clothes matter play second fiddle, as is right and proper it should, to the question of fine acting.

CHAPTER XIV

THE MASHER, AND WHY HE EXISTS_

Thousands of persons who do not themselves use slang understand and even appreciate it.  The American brand is generally pithy, compact, and expressive, and not always vulgar.  Slang is at its worst in contemptuous epithets, and of those the one that is lowest and most offensive seems likely to become a permanent, recognized addition to the language.  No more vulgar term exists than “masher,” and it is a distinct comfort to find Webster ascribing the origin of the word to England’s reckless fun-maker,—­Punch.