is secretly populous with observers who take note of
everything.

Of course, among these peregrinate great numbers almost in a
stupor so far as what is closest around them is concerned; and
there are those, too, who are so completely busied with either
the consciousness of being noticed, or the hope of being
noticed, or the hatred of it, that they take note of nothing
else. Fifth Avenue expressions are a filling meal for the
prowling lonely joker; but what will most satisfy his cannibal
appetite is the passage of the self-conscious men and women.
For here, on a good day, he cannot fail to relish some extreme
cases of their whimsical disease: fledgling young men making
believe to be haughty to cover their dreadful symptoms, the
mask itself thus revealing what it seeks to conceal; timid
young ladies, likewise treacherously exposed by their defenses;
and very different ladies, but in similar case, being
retouched ladies, tinted ladies; and ladies who know that they
are pretty at first sight, ladies who chat with some obscured
companion only to offer the public a treat of graceful
gestures; and poor ladies making believe to be rich ladies; and
rich ladies making believe to be important ladies; and many
other sorts of conscious ladies. And men--ah, pitiful!--pitiful
the wretch whose hardihood has involved him in cruel and
unusual great gloss and unsheltered tailed coat. Any man in his
overcoat is wrapped in his castle; he fears nothing. But to
this hunted creature, naked in his robin's tail, the whole
panorama of the Avenue is merely a blurred audience, focusing
upon him a vast glare of derision; he walks swiftly, as upon
fire, pretends to careless sidelong interest in shop-windows