University of Virginia Library

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142

OLD ROGER'S NEW HAT.

[ILLUSTRATION] [Description: 677EAF. Page 142. In-line Illustration. Image of a crowd of people. One of them is a man who is looking angry and holding his hat in his hand. Another is a very large woman in a cloak that seems to have sat on the hat.]

FOR heaven's sake, old woman,
get off my hat!” said
Roger at the concert, as he
saw a two hundred and fifty
pounder settle on his new
ventilated castor. Old woman!
It was an ungallant
expression, but the circumstance
would seem to justify
it. A new hat was a new
era in his existence, and this
was one of the latest. Recovering
himself, and pressing over his knee as best he
might his crushed tile, the wrinkles but too apparent, he
calmly continued, “I would n't object to your trying it
on, ma'am, were there the least chance of its fitting; but
it is evident that it is n't large enough. I never saw a
hat worn in that way before, and I don't want to furnish
one to experiment upon, either.”

The hat was put on, but how like an apothecary's
'prentice long indented it looked, contrasted with its previous
fair proportions! The opera is very destructive to
hats, especially where they throw them at the singers.