Aside from one young fellow seated across the aisle, he and the girls were alone in the rear of the streetcar. He toyed momentarily with the possibility that these were not the young girls he had thought. Even if his quick impression was correct, the one was certainly large enough to be a woman. He remembered the time a few years earlier when, over a casual cup of coffee in a cafeteria, a friend had him convinced that a flashy blond sitting nearby was a female impersonator. The friend extended the point to include others in the place.
Clever people can assume characteristics of young or old, man or woman.
And besides, I know about this place. Charlie was not only capable of seeing such possibilities, but he actually began to see merit in changing identities. It was shortly after that that he shaved off his beard. It was as though he was beginning a whole new existence. Here were these two women, Charlie now thought to himself, rejecting their routine middle-class existence with a Saturday excursion as children.