Dreads and Drolls by Arthur Machen

The other day, reading the paper, I came upon a half-column that interested me. It was headed: "Slimness-While-You-Wait," and a sub-heading ran: "The `Boiled Cyclist' Treatment." Who could resist such invitations as these! Not I.

I found that the article concerned a new "Beauty Parlour" in the Bond Street quarter. And how pleasant it is, by the way, to note the manner in which America is restoring to us the good old English word, "parlour," which we had lost awhile. Well, in this Beauty Parlour, the lady who would achieve perfection of form must undergo many severe trials; and, indeed, this is the way of perfection of every kind, and there is no escape from it. And the trials of Bond Street are hard to bear; they almost recall the terrors which, in popular tradition, are supposed to await him who would pass through the Third Degree of a venerable secret order. Thus I read: "First she (the person to be initiated in these mysteries) has to strip herself of her clothing and sit for twenty minutes in the `reducycle bath.' The bath is surrounded by canvas which is fastened round her neck. In its interior a bicycle is fitted, and the client sits on the bicycle saddle and works the pedals as though she were actually riding quickly along a road."