The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 378: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE TWO NEIGHBOURING HOUSES 347 only press her goods to a certain point, and no farther; she will expatiate upon how much this or that article is sure to become the complexion of the particular customer with whom she is treating at the time, but she will not too persua- sively force the said articles upon such customer. Thus she gives universal satisfaction, and as for her bills, she only sends them in once a year, about three months after Christ- mas, remaining perfectly satisfied if they be liquidated any time before the ensuing Christmas. It were almost needless to add that she herself dresses with the most unexceptionable taste, in a manner becoming to her years, with the slightest dash of a Parisian coquetry, but yet so far removed from being outré that it is impossible to make her look ridiculous. She uses rouge and pearl-powder with so much skill that only those ladies who are equally skilful in the mysteries of the toilet could discern how much her complexion is indebted to those accessories; and her smile reveals so admirable a set, of teeth that even the wearers of false ones themselves would find it difficult to attribute Madame Angelique’s to the succedaneous art of a renowned dentist in the same street. The tailor’s shop next door is as handsome in its own way as the magasin of Madame Angelique. It is the establish- ment of no cheap clothier; none of the exquisitely fashioned articles of raiment displayed in the window are vulgarized by ticketed prices. M. Bertin — for the tailor is a French- man, as Madame Angelique is a Frenchwoman — would scorn the idea of selling pantaloons at sixteen shillings, surtouts at two guineas, and paletots at two ten. No suit of clothes is sent out from his establishment under seven guineas. His name is in gilt letters over the shop front, in brass letters ingeniously stuck on to the middle pane of plate glass, and repeated on a brass plate on the shop door. Everything looks businesslike and respectable, — yes, and wealthy also, at M. Bertin’s; and if a passer-by glances up at the windows on the drawing-room or higher floors he beholds rich draperies and the tops of gilt back chairs, all indicative of the sumptuous interior of M. Bertin’s habita- tion. As for M. Bertin himself, he is a short, middle-aged man, very active and very obsequious, tolerably good-look- ing for his years, exquisitely dressed, making a large display of watch-chain festooning over his waistcoat, of diamond ¢com (@) books (E(O)