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The answer was to use one of these - a 'jealousy glass' designed to look like a simple straight-barrelled spyglass but in fact containing an oblique lens and side aperture so you can look at what is happening to your left or right. The aperture was usually less conspicuous than this example, though maybe sometimes the user wanted to be caught!
The technical name for a side-looking opera or field glass with an oblique mirror is 'polemoscope'. The German-Polish astronomer Johannes Hevelius (1611-1687) claimed to have invented it in 1637, describing it in his book about the moon, Selenographia (1647) and apparently he named it after the Greek word for war because he thought it could have military uses although Robert Hooke examined one and found the viewing angle too narrow for this. It was as a fun plaything that the invention really took off in the 18th century.
The jealousy glass at the top has a brass eyepiece and blue enamel casing featuring white decorative embellishments. A hinged 'lens cover' conceals a storage compartment (probably for snuff or a pomade). There is of course no lens there at all. Instead an oval mirror with a surrounding green cord opens to the side.
(Item shown: LDBOA1999.1972, purchased 1935. French circa 1750-1770. Madame Heymann describes and illustrates a very similar item said to be from Saxony).
The second, much less blatant, jealousy glass contained all the accoutrements a gentleman might desire. It is incorporated within a gold-mounted etui with a brass body covered in green-stained fishskin. A magnetic compass has been set into the brass cap. The wooden core to the etui contains a gentleman's manicure set including nail scissors, hinged ivory note-slide, pencil, folding knife, needle and tweezers with a file handle.
(Item shown: LDBOA1999.1915, purchased 1936. English c.1760).
The object matches Thomas Ribright's patent no 640 of 1749 concerning 'Portable Cases for Mathematical and Other Instruments'.
Ladies were thought to want other things, so the female equivalent, shown here in an example by Bointaburet from early 19th century Paris contained a pill receptacle in the end beneath a lid and a miniature scent bottle just 2cm wide that fitted within the barrel. Should your neighbour's antics overwhelm your tender sensitivities the other contents would help revive you!
(Item shown: LDBOA1999.1916, purchased 1937. French early 19th c.)