Having pretty well made an oaf of myself among the ladies in the
first half of this tome, it is best that I start on that strange
manifestation known as the male wallflower.
Let us suppose for this half of the argument that I am just about the
cleverest little girl alive. Let us suppose that I have not only brains
but an extraordinary amount of beauty.
I began in the first half, in the guise of a young man, by telling
the girls to take a bath. The same applies here. Of course, you don’t
need to trouble yourself with perfumes and all that balderdash. If you
are old enough, be sure to shave and powder your face with an almost
odorless powder.
The ladies, if you just will wrest my girlish secrets from me, you big
handsome brute, like nothing better than the strong masculine odors
of Ivory soap, clean linen and tobacco smoke. If you smell of these
you are safe with me and with most other young ladies. I mean you are
unsafe.
As to the urgent detail of a bath. My dear, I once knew a young man
whom I had always liked very much and who attended all the dances I
did. One night he was so rushed that he was unable to get his usual
bath. Totally unaware of his bodily odor he came to the dance as he
was. Of course, he had attended to the other details of dressing for
that particular dance but without having taken a bath first. The result
was horrible.
During one of the intermissions several of us girls remarked upon the
phenomenon among ourselves. We agreed after a very slight discussion
that we would much prefer that the young man came late and bathed than
on time and unbathed. Most girls are lenient about such things, so
there is no excuse for your not taking a bath before you go to a dance.
Let us say that you have come to take me to a dance from my mother’s
house. You are at present in the parlor with my mother and my aunt who
lives with us. You suppose that I am not concerned about how you treat
those individuals. You are mistaken; I am vitally concerned about that.
You may not know it, but my mother and my aunt are very good judges of
young men, and older men too for that matter. They were popular girls
in their youth and they know what’s what about you and every other man
alive, bar none. My mother has never claimed to care a snap of her
finger for women; she is a man’s woman. She is much happier in the
society of men than anywhere else.
My father tells me that when first married he was amazed at the number
of young men that used to come to visit him in their home. While he
was relating certain little anecdotes about this and other details of
his early and somewhat harrowed married life, I looked at mother and
she actually winked at me. Rest assured then that I come of a race of
charmers. Be careful how you treat my mother and especially my aunt.
That dear lady has had no fewer than three husbands. Alas, all of them
are under ground. And now old Judge Balsam is trying to get her. Ha!
Let us say that you are in the parlor with my mother and my aunt at the
same time. They are appraising you with practiced eyes. What shall you
do?
Begin to talk. Say something. Anything will do. But avoid mentioning
me or my youth. A real, honest-to-goodness woman never likes to be
reminded that she is the mother or the aunt of anything or even the
wife, for that matter. If you are clever, and it is to be hoped that
you are just such a young man, you will have guessed already that the
best thing to do is to make a conquest of one or both of them right on
the spot.
Really I won’t mind because I know perfectly well that they haven’t a
chance against me. So go ahead, spill your line on the elders. It will
be awfully good practice and you know by now that you will have to be
pretty smooth around me to get anywhere at all.
Appeal to their femininity first. Don’t tell them that they are
remarkably well preserved nor let them think that you would call them
my sisters. They know that that’s not true at all. I have you stumped,
haven’t I? Well, Pinkey (you have red hair), you’re right where I want
you. Let them throw the first brick.
They may begin by trying to place you to their satisfaction somewhere
in the universe. If you are wise you will mention only your male
acquaintances and relations. If you mention any ladies, mention them
with an implied slur in your voice and possibly a slight curl to your
lip as if you were saying, “But you know her type.” That carries you
far. You will find by the use of this simple technique that you have
literally placed yourself as close as possible to them in the universe.
Next they will begin on you and now is your chance to make them flatter
you and when they flatter you, why then, you flatter them and they are
yours and that’s all there is to winning an aunt or a mother.
“Yes,” you say, “that’s all very good advice but what earthly good is
it to me when I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
And I say, “O, you men, are so funny, you never seem to understand the
most logical things.” You will probably look quite dazed now and wonder
where and when I used any logic or even any continuity in my advice.
That, dear lad, is the secret of secrets. Woman, if you are really
interested, is a paradox.
But now comes your greatest test. When I come upon the scene, you must
forget my mother and my aunt and center your entire attention upon me.
Your eyes and your whole being should say:
And when you come upon the scene
I drown in my adrenaline.
“But you are advising me to do something you warned me against just a
moment ago,” you will cry.
“O, but I’m not, cher. I’m just telling you to let my mother and aunt
know that I am another attractive woman and that if they expect to get
anywhere with you they will have me to contend with. That will please
them in a rather round about way too. They will feel that since they
can’t get you, at least one of their strain has the latent ability to
do so.”
That sounds like so much foolishness but let me tell you that no woman
on earth, unless she is something else besides a perfectly normal and
respectable woman, thinks that she, under proper conditions, cannot get
any man. The word respectable causes you to wonder, doesn’t it? Don’t
let it. We are just as human as you are and certainly more aware.
We have said goodby to my aunt and mother and have at last departed for
the dance. It might be wise at this point to tell you just what a young
lady expects of a young man in that matter of expenditures.
This is our first date, let us say, and therefore you should know just
what sort of layout will please me most. Something neat but not gaudy!
In the first place if you are a young lawyer or doctor or a very
promising newspaperman, please know that I do not expect you to go to
any great expense on my account. Of course, some women like to feel
that you would spend your last cent on them but you can easily give
that impression without actually doing so. Don’t think for a minute
that I’ll have anything to do with you if you are at all pecksniffian
about what you spend on me. I always like to feel that you are doing
your noble best and I want you to understand that I appreciate it.
Since we are going to a dance together; and, let us say, that the dance
is about four blocks from my home; there is no reason why you should
come for me in a taxi or even bring your own car if you have one.
Really, girls in good health don’t mind walking if for no other reason
than that it makes for pretty legs and nice carriage.
Of course, if the dance is all the way across town and it entails too
much of an expense to come for me in a taxi, why we’ll go on a street
car but I don’t like to and you might as well know right now that I’d
rather have you ragged in a taxi than dressed within an inch of your
life afoot. Anyway we girls don’t like for men to be, ostensibly,
peacocks.
If you have a car of your own that makes everything different. I really
don’t mind what make it is or how rakish it may look. In fact I rather
like riding on a warm spring night in one of those clever little
contraptions that college boys have, with the queer, crazy labels all
over them. They show your ingenuity.
Let us say that you have one of those new Ford Coupes with or without a
rumble seat and that we have started at last. If you don’t know me very
well, which you don’t, be careful to put me in my seat first and then
walk around to the other side of the car and get in yourself. I’ll
like that. It will show me that you know your stuff.
Well, here we go. What shall we talk about now? The time has come, as
Lewis Carroll and the walrus said, to speak of many things. What shall
they be?
Now is the time to find out just what you have picked for the evening’s
entertainment.
Pretend I’m a flapper first. Now there are flappers and flappers, but
what I really mean by a flapper is somebody who does an excessive
amount of flapping. Which is saying what? Merely this. That I cavort
about with cute little kittenish ways and deliver myself of thousands
of witticisms that mean nothing whatsoever but which get over nobly
with the fellows. I may be the baby type with cute little perky
mannerisms and the cleverest possible line of baby talk or near baby
talk. The early American baby talk which was widespread during the
great vogue of the Newlyweds and Snookems who, strangely, were the
ancestors of Maggie and Jiggs, is now greatly demoded. The present baby
talk girls are child prodigies who use the biggest of all possible
words on whatever occasion and in the most unique places. To hear
one of them you would think that their high school dictionaries were
written by F. Scott Fitzgerald.
“Pwesus, you just simply ossified me Tuesday last with your
lubrications anent the b.f.” What does that mean? It means, “Precious,
you just simply surprised me last Tuesday with your talk about your
present sweetheart.”
If I am one of these just stand by and let me have the air all to
myself. I’ll like you better and you may be vastly entertained by my
strange and unheard of use of the English language, so called.
You might start by asking whether or not I’ve read the latest fictional
atrocity by van Stotenbottle and since van Stotenbottle appeals so to
my type you are liable to get the most choice bit of literary criticism
that has ever come your way. With my type very little you can do makes
me like you more or less.
But suppose I am not that type. Let’s suppose I am a very beautiful
but haughty maiden immaculate and cold. Let us say that you have
ascertained this from the attitude of my mother and aunt toward you.
Don’t be afraid of me, old dear, I’m really not nearly so terrible
as I seem. Would I have given you a date if you hadn’t seemed quite
attractive to me? Not on your life. Don’t get the silly idea that I am
anything other than just a plain ordinary woman behind a rather chilly
mask.
What is to be said to such a creature? You can and probably will say
several things very unpleasant to me before you actually find out what
I want to hear about. That can be avoided by your not saying them and
going immediately to the things that I like and am really interested in.
I want to know first just who you are. I want for reasons of my own, to
discover whether your ancestors came over in the steerage, by student
cabin or how; and I want to know when they did it and why they moved
from the old country. Was it from pressure or preference? Were they
really nice people forced to weather pioneer life or whom?
You must know just why there is a northern branch of the van
Stotenbottles and a southern branch. Was there a rift in the ancestral
lute? Or was it only because of certain economic conditions that
your family was forced to move from New York to Ohio, from Ohio to
Missouri and from Missouri to Utah? To satisfy me completely you must
know just what females were picked up by the most honorable Dutch van
Stotenbottles in their hitherings and yonings over the surface of this
earth. You should make me respect your line so deeply that my only
remaining regret is that my name is not Miss Adam so that it may seem
more respectable and more antique than your own.
For your further edification let us say that I am a business woman of
the most successful type. I have been the branch manager for one of
the larger and more reputable insurance firms for no less than three
years. I have come to this position by sheer acumen and a whole lot of
perseverance. It has not made me at all masculine; no more than being a
modiste or a chef would make a man effeminate. I know, old dear, that
your preconceived ideas of a business woman are that she must be almost
half male to get along in the world of finance and men. Why should she
be? That is just another bit of your vanity cropping out. It hurts your
pride that women, who have led harbored lives for centuries, should
suddenly burst forth and become such eminent successes as they are.
Very well, I am a young business woman and I am a very tired young
business woman. I want some sort of diversion and you had better give
it to me or I’ll dead sure find some other young man who will.
What shall we talk about? Why we can talk about my dress. We can tell
each other little anecdotes about all sorts of things. It really
doesn’t matter what because I can take care of myself. I haven’t worked
among men all my life for nothing. They can’t scare me but I have been
known to hurt them.
Let us suppose that we have chosen to talk in a very high-minded sort
of way about certain sex manifestations throughout the human race.
Don’t think that I am giving you any house and become familiar. I’m
liable to slap you down. Mentally my type is very free but biologically
our integrity is irreproachably intact.
If I am the intellectual type you have hit another problem quite as
tenacious as the other three. I am the easiest of all the types to
distinguish but the hardest of the lot to handle with cleverness and
finesse.
I indicate myself by a series of nicely worded epigrams and perhaps a
brief review of every article in the current _Vanity Fair_. Be sure you
know what is in the current issue because I never go back a month for
a single idea. I am the angel of the new. I laugh loudly at your taste
for Washington Irving.
And when I do that you may rest tranquil that I am pretty young and
pretty light and pretty. It should be no great problem for you to
make me wonder at your intellect if you like Washington Irving.
The things I like to talk about are not so myriad as they might be.
Don’t let my long sentences about Maillot and Picasso frighten you.
Please get the idea that if you pooh-pooh them, saying that they are
after all quite old fashioned, that I will think that you are going
just a little beyond my depth and that you must be a perfect wonder. I
will seem to be quite bored by what you have to say but I will go home
after we have had this date together and try to discover whence came
all of your esoteric information. I will even have had to look up a
great many words that you used.
Behind my high brow you may find me to be a woman of no little ability
in various lines. Very often I am a wonderful petter and can hold my
liquor very gracefully.
Having determined to become an intellectual I have with unusual zest
decided to find out in a very cursory manner about several varieties of
life. If you have any new bit I would be delighted to learn about it.