Page:A hairdresser's experience in high life.djvu/107

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IN HIGH LIFE.
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this murder, to save himself, he said this gentleman visited his wife at unseasonable hours. This caused a separation between them for a long time.

There were some six or seven hundred people at the St. Nicholas at that time. From there I went to the New York Hotel, where I found all pretty much one clique—all fashionable and elegant people; the house and its guests very much like the Hotel Maurice in Paris. I then went to visit a lady I had been promising to go to see for five or six years, who had been a great belle. When I arrived at the house I found her husband sick, and did not stay long. On my going to visit another lady, she told me what was the matter with him, and she seemed perfectly delighted, as they were very proud people, and thought few persons good enough to associate with.

A bachelor friend of this gentleman had an elegant housekeeper. He told this friend she was inconstant. The lady hearing of it, took a carriage, and knowing his usual walks, met him coming from the Battery right at the Bowling Green, and stepping from the carriage, with a cowhide she cut over the face and eyes so badly he had to run into a little shop to escape from her. She then got into her carriage and drove home. He had to remain in the shop till he sent for a carriage, and was taken home, where he remained for three or four weeks. This made quite a stir among the gentlemen.

I was now tired of my visit to New York, and made up my mind to go back to Albany and see after my money. I had no idea of being put off as I had seen others. I left New York in the evening, and the next morning I found myself in Albany. I went first to