because--oh, dash it all, you know how tight those skirts are! Besides,
occasionally in shop-windows and while hurrying modestly past certain
"circles" in department-stores, we have inadvertently seen articles of
feminine attire (warranted pure whalebone) which would seem to make the
operation of sitting down a difficult and painful feat of compression.
We feel a certain delicacy in mentioning this, and not for worlds would
we dream of using the language in which these garments are described in
the newspaper ads--the accompanying photographs almost make it
impossible for us to read them. But the fact remains that the
statuesque young lady in the car may not have been able to bend any more
than her neck, which was quite bare and untrammelled halfway down the
lungs.
Of course, Lord Chesterfield and all the books of etiquette since his
time have been strong for self-possession. A man, they say, should be
self-possessed under any and every circumstance--the more surprising and
unpleasant they are, the more self-possessed he should be. It is the
secret of good manners.
Now that is just the sort of excellent and utterly futile advice that we
are always getting. Be self-possessed--sure! But how? That's what we
want--specific directions, not general advice. We would welcome a few
concrete illustrations for maintaining one's self-possession when
meeting one's recently divorced wife, for instance, or after dropping a
soda-check in the collection plate, or while mother is showing pictures
of one as a baby, or while purchasing long silk hose and explaining that
auntie is having a birthday. Situations such as these are apt to occur
in the most skilfully regulated lives, and naturally we would like to
know what to do--meaning, what to do with our hands and the perspiration
on our brow and the blushes on our face.
Just as a case in point--we went into a department-store some months
back to buy a thimble. We do a little sewing now and then, you
know--nothing fancy, just buttons and repairs of a temporary and
intimate nature. It occurred to us that we ought to have a thimble. A
bed-post is all right, if it is handy. But you are not always near
enough to be able to shove the needle against it; and naturally one
can't very well carry a bed-post around with one, can one?
So we decided to buy a thimble and went into a department-store for the
purpose, having previously steeled our breast and made brazen our
countenance. But we didn't have the courage to ask anyone, least of all
a floor-walker, where the things were sold. For fifteen minutes we
wandered about peering at the various "circles," and rousing the worst
suspicions of the shop-detectives. There were at least two men shadowing
us by the time we finally saw a tray of thimbles and rushed at it with a
gasp of relief.
Our relief, however, was premature. There was a girl standing back of
the tray--not the usual beauty in a lace blouse, who toys with her
back-hair and stares through a man with devastating indifference. We
were prepared for that sort, and had several curt and peremptory things
ready to say. But this was a nice, motherly girl, the kind of girl who
makes a man feel that he is just seven years old and is about to have
his face washed. These are overwhelming!
"A thimble?--you want a thimble?" she asked with an air of bustling
solicitude. "What size? But, of course, a man never does know the size.
Let me see your finger."
Now, we had started out with an insane notion that we would say the
thimble was for our wife, who was too ill to come down-town and wanted a
thimble for a little crochet-work or something to while away the time.
You know the sort of silly yarn a man would naturally invent. But we
realized at once that it was no use here. We felt that this girl knew
we were a bachelor; knew the sort of sewing we do; and probably knew
just what buttons were missing on just what coat, and all about that rip
in the waist-band of our trousers.
So we held out our finger--our index finger! Patiently she put it back
and took the next one to it, holding it very firmly while she tried two
or three thimbles on it in rapid succession. We felt like a June bride
watching the bridegroom fiddle with the ring.
"Will you take this thimble?" she finally asked.
"I w-w-will!"
The infernal phrase slipped out in spite of us, in a voice which we in
vain endeavored to make assured. It was an absurd predicament. All
that was lacking was a parson and that tum-tum-tiddee thing from
"Lohengrin."
"But isn't it a little loose?" she persisted. Then she took it off and
tried on a few more. By this time three or four other girls had come
up, and were inspecting us with a detached and somewhat contemptuous
interest--all except a little fool who blushed and giggled. If the
maternal one hadn't had such a tight hold on our finger, we would have
run. We could feel the perspiration sizzling on our burning cheeks.
"Ah, that's better," she said at last, after she had tried on about
fifteen. "Men always like them tight, you know. And now you want some
thread, don't you?--some nice, strong, black and white thread."
We did, but we wouldn't have admitted it for anything in this world--or
the world to come either. Not if we had to fasten our suspenders with
clothes-pins. We simply seized that infernal thimble and hurried away
in such a blind agony of shame that we forgot our change and nearly
knocked a floor-walker down.
Self-possession--gawd!
[Illustration: RAIMENT AND MERE CLOTHES]
*Raiment and Mere Clothes*
Women, of course, dress to annoy one another. We wouldn't be guilty of
a truism of this nature, if it were not that a lot of worthy people have
gone about lately talking and writing and warning from pulpits as though
women dressed for the express purpose of luring the minds of men from
the contemplation of the higher and more spiritual things to which they
are naturally inclined.
There has even been a Papal Bull--or if not a real honest-to-goodness
Bull, at least a good husky yearling of the sort known as an
Encyclical--condemning slit skirts and demi-tasse waists and the dances
people do in them, on the ground that they put in masculine minds ideas
that wouldn't be there naturally. This, however, shows how little the
Vatican knows about feminine psychology--though their ignorance is
naturally very much to their credit.
In the first place, no lady would do such a thing--would you, girls? In
the second, the average man is too unobservant. And in the third, the
women are too busy considering how to "put it over" one another, to have
time to worry about the effect of the things they wear--or don't--on
their male _entourage_ (with the accent on the "--rawzh," the Society
Editor assures us). As we said above with epigrammatic force and
brilliancy, women dress to annoy one another. The mere fact that someone
else or several may have said the same thing before does not lessen the
truth of the aphorism or the pleasure we take in it.
Whatever their motive, women devote a lot of thought, time, and some
man's money to the subject of dress. Most people are agreed on this.
With men, however, it is supposed to be very different. There is a
curious theory that men don't give a dern--whatever that may amount
to--about their clothes. People generally seem to have an idea that a
man waits till his suit is torn, or so shiny that he gives the effect of
an animated heliograph, before he orders another. And when he does, he
is supposed to rush in to his tailor for half a minute between important
business calls, or he rings him up on the 'phone.
"Send me up a new suit," he shouts, or something to this hasty effect.
"What color?--oh, any old color you got. Something that will wear a
long time. Solong!"
That is the way most women and a few men think the average man buys his
clothes. But they are wrong. If you want to know how wrong, you have
only to go into a tailor's place, Friend Reader--supposing you keep a
tailor and not a bargain-counter--while some fat old boy with
mutton-chops and a protuberant abdominal profile is raising the dickens
because the poor tailor can't take the strain off the trouser-band and
put it on the top buttons of the vest. Then you will learn that the
shaping of collars and shoulders is a matter of supreme masculine
concern, and that the hang of a trouser-leg is a thing on which the
happiness of years may depend. Then possibly you will come to the
conclusion that the average man thinks a great deal more about his
attire than you have ever suspected.
Not that the average man's clothes are numerous or conspicuous--not at
present prices, anyway. On the contrary, they are usually quite few and
inconspicuous--except possibly from age. But the fewer they are the
more attention he has to devote to them. That is the paradox of the
thing.
A wealthy Adonis--or one with a good line of credit, at least--can adopt
a careless attitude towards his clothes. He may even keep a valet to
worry about them. When he orders a new suit he orders two or three.
His shirts and ties and socks he buys by the dozen. Suits he doesn't
like, he doesn't have to wear. If he grows weary of a certain color or
pattern--one of those shepherd-plaids you can play chess on, for
instance, or a nice hot brown that would melt the film of a camera--he
tosses it to his man or an itinerant Hebrew and turns to one of a dozen
other outfits in the wardrobe. Why should he worry? He doesn't.
The man, however, who gets a couple of suits a year--or more probably
only one--has a quite different problem to face, calling for the finest
qualities of artistic and economic judgment. With what anxiety he
studies the various samples of cloth! Will this wear well? Will that
one gloss? Will the grey go with his brown overcoat?--perhaps not, but
then the green is so striking that people will notice it next year and
remember.
Then as to the cut. It must be in the style, but not too pronounced.
Those lapels are too wide, or the slit in the back isn't long enough, or
the cuff on the trousers isn't sufficiently deep. One has to be careful,
for--dash it all!--the suit has to do two years. So he worries the life
out of his tailor for an hour a day through a fortnight or more, brings
the coat back three times for alterations, and then pays for the suit in
small instalments.
If a man's troubles were over once he got his suit, it wouldn't be so
bad. But the older a suit gets the more trouble it gives. For one
thing, you have to keep it pressed. Coats will get wrinkled, and human
knees are obviously intended by nature to put bags in trousers.
Occasionally, too, while playing approach shots with the soup or making
short putts in the pudding sauce, a gentleman is liable to foozle and
get it all over his vest--unless, of course, he makes a habit of tying
his napkin around his neck. Incidentally, this is a much more sensible
system than draping it over his right knee. Who ever spilled anything
on his right knee, anyway?
These are serious questions to resolve. What should one do about
it?--have a fellow in livery and a Ford call around once a week and
carry one's garments off and bathe them in benzine and manhandle them
with electric-irons? This is handy, of course, but in a few months it
costs more than the suit is worth. Tip the cook, then, to press your
trousers, and trust to heaven and a patent-hanger to keep the coat in
shape? Sometimes this works, but naturally a lot depends on the cook.
Once we entrusted the trousers of our "other" suit to the cook, a
colored lady of unblemished character and cheerful disposition. We were
going out informally that evening, but we wanted to make a good showing,
and we needed those trousers pressed in a hurry. She pressed them all
right. She pressed them so hard she almost split the cloth on the
edges. But when we saw them--modestly stretching a bare arm for them
around the corner of the door--we smiled bravely, thanked her for her
exceeding goodness, and then closed the door and wept feebly upon them.
She had put the creases in the sides! Since then we make a point of
keeping our "other" trousers under the mattress that they may be ready
in cases of sudden emergency.
Another difficulty is in the matter of the buttons to be sewn on and the
occasional rents to be mended. These are more slings and arrows of
outrageous fortune which noble bachelor minds are called upon to suffer.
Landladies are sometimes kind-hearted and can be flattered into
displaying other domestic virtues than those connected with the making
of beds and the frying of matutinal bacon. But usually they are too
busy. Of course, a man can always get married, but ... and you don't
always get your buttons sewn on, at that.
Personally, after much worry and embarrassment, we have acquired a very
decent skill with the needle--nothing fancy, you know, but substantial.
We can't use a thimble yet with any confidence, but there is usually a
bed-post handy to shove the needle against. Not even during the
patriotic activities of the war did we have any occasion to sew in
hotel-lobbies or at concerts or in street-cars. What sewing we do is
done in the privacy of the boudoir, and only when vitally necessary.
We have a friend, rather a dandy, who says that the ideal of good
dressing--no, not the kind that comes with a turkey, girls--is that a
man's personality should show through his clothes. This, of course, is
very aesthetic and quite as it should be. But the thing must not be
overdone. Occasionally a man's personality shows through too clearly,
and then the only thing to do is to take a large needle, double the
thread, and sew the place up.
Some day we hope to have a million--honestly acquired, we trust, but
still a million. When that happy time arrives, we will dress as we darn
well please. We will wear old clothes and let our pants bag at the
knees. We will cease to pinch our feet in tight boots, or half-strangle
ourself with high stiff collars. And people will not despise us for our
shabby exterior. On the contrary, they will admire us for it, and think
we are a democratic old cuss, and forgive us for owning so much money.
Till that period of affluence arrives, however, we will be forced to go
on devoting too much time and attention and money to our habiliments.
Not that we are a "knut," Friend Reader--the mere thought fills us with
horror. On the contrary, our whole endeavor is to avoid the garish and
extreme. We aim at elegant discretion. It is our ideal to give the
impression that we are a wealthy amateur who has taken up journalism as
a hobby.
A time there was, however, when we cherished other notions of
journalistic attire. It was when we had first left our _alma
mater_--one's _alma mater_ may be anything from a night-school to five
years at Oxford--and had entered on the high mission of moulding public
opinion at "twelve per." Then it was our ambition to be Bohemian. We
wore very wide-brimmed hats, and low collars with generous openings in
front so as to display the Adam's-apple in all its unfettered freedom.
We never brushed our clothes, and we kept our hair rather long. We
wanted to look like an eager young genius, whose gaze was on far and
high things, and who spurned such petty distinctions as are conferred by
creases in the front of one's pants.
One night our theory of sumptuary beauty received an awful jolt. The
discovery was forced upon us that other people did not see eye to eye
with us in the matter of the aesthetics of dress. There was one suit we
owned--one of the two, that is--which we hated with a whole-hearted
hatred. It was too much even for us. We bought it from a friend who had
just gone into the tailoring profession. It was probably his first
case, and the operation was not a success--he was nervous, perhaps. The
cloth was a heather-mixture--that is what he called it, at any rate,
though the color suggested that a number of chameleons had committed
suicide on it. The cut was indescribable. The coat was dimly
reminiscent of a Roman toga--we had told him to make it loose--and the
trousers were obviously modelled on those of Micawber in old illustrated
editions of "David Copperfield."
Being unable to afford the relief of throwing the thing away, we tried
to get a certain amount of wear out of it under an overcoat. One
evening when we were surreptitiously taking it for a walk under a
mackintosh, we met an artist friend of ours. He was all muffled up to
the throat, as though he, too, were concealing a sartorial mishap.
"Come on over to the Art Gallery," said he, "there are some rather nice
things over there--imported."
We like pictures, especially those foreign ones--"Lady with Green
Stocking," you know the sort--so we hastened gladly along with our
friend, only stopping twice on the way. It was before the advent of
Prohibition, and--well, if we had known what we were going to run into
at the Art Gallery, we would have had about a quart, neat.
When we reached the place and our friend struggled out of his overcoat,
we saw that he was in evening clothes. We were surprised, but thinking
he was perhaps saving his business suit--besides, you never can tell how
an artist will dress--we said nothing. But when we got into the gallery
we understood. It was opening night, private view, by invitation
only--the complete formal caper, b' Jove!--and every blessed soul in the
place was in full regalia. Every woman present seemed to be "posing for
the bust"--that, we believe is the technical phrase--and the gentlemen
could be distinguished from waiters only by the wrinkles in their
clothes and the faint aroma of camphor and moth-balls.
We would have cut and run if we had been given the chance; but our
friend was a hospitable chap. He grabbed us by the arm and dragged us
about from picture to picture, while we perspired agony at every pore
and everybody in the gallery glared at us as though we were the tattooed
man clad only in our illustrations. Art-lovers are supposed to be an
unconventional set. If you want to find out how unconventional they are,
go to an "opening night" in business clothes, and see!
Finally we made our escape--we pleaded illness or a twisted ankle or
something of that sort. We hurried home and as soon as we got there we
pitched that suit out of the window. It caught in the branches of a
tree where it stayed till the family made us get a ladder and take it
down--they said it gave the public the idea that the gentlemen in the
house ran around without any clothes on.
We never did wear it again. The very next day we went out and bought a
set of open-faced formal clothes. For months afterwards we wouldn't go
out for a walk in the evening without them. We didn't feel safe. Mere
clothes might be all right for millionaires and geniuses, but sumptuous
raiment for ours! We couldn't afford to wear less.
[Illustration: THAT FUR COAT]
*That Fur Coat*
Ever since our downy and callow youth the fur-lined overcoat has been
for us a symbol of wealth and a certain dashing deviltry. Of course, we
are perfectly well aware that a number of tame married men, holding
positions worth about twenty dollars a week, own fur-lined coats. Even
on the editorial staff of which we are the bright particular star there
are two or three overcoats lined with something definitely recognizable
as fur.
Nevertheless we have never been able to conquer our instinctive feeling
that a fur-lined overcoat indicates the possession of a great deal of
money and a doggish tendency to spend it on wine, women, and--well, the
singing is not so important in the picture. Whenever we see a man
sporting a fur-lined overcoat our first thought is to wonder whether or
not his wife has found out about him. Our second is to wish we had a
coat like it.
The origin of this curious and somewhat pathetic feeling about fur-lined
coats is probably to be found in the days of our adolescence, when we
wore deliriously exotic ties and attended the presentations of refined
melodrama. We devoted much thought in those days to the subject of
masculine attire--possibly with some obscure notion of attracting the
weaker sex by the brilliancy of our plumage--and the villain always
fascinated while he revolted us. We had much joy of his clothes.
To see the handsome devil swing across the stage with his light but
fiendish ha-ha, his cigarette, and the dress-suit which is the national
costume of villains, always gave us a thrill which the chaste embraces
of the hero and heroine seldom provided. Even to this day we wouldn't
give a darn to watch some other fellow hugging a comely young woman.
Usually the villain wore a fur-lined coat at some stage of his hellish
machinations--preferably at the height of them, when he was about to
boil the heroine's baby, for instance, or was engaged in tying that
long-suffering and virtuous lady in the path of the onrushing train. It
was at such moments that he threw open the coat loaned by the well-known
firm of local furriers--as the programme never forgot to state--and
displayed the mink lining of luxurious sin. We always wondered how the
heroine found the strength of mind to resist his wicked advances to her.
Incidentally, we noticed that no matter what liberties the hero might
take with the person of the villain--the hero was usually a muscular
blond--he always forebore to lay the hands of avenging justice on the
fur-lined coat. He might pitch the tr-r-raitor-r off a cliff, or slowly
choke him to death after a furious grapple, or shoot him in the nick of
time and the chest, but never with the coat on. If the villain forgot
to take it off, the hero always taunted him into doing so. Whereupon
the villain, knowing full well that he had come to the end of his evil
tether, either hung the coat carefully on a handy hook or folded it
neatly on a chair. The owner might be down in the orchestra seats.
Such scenes bred in us a superstitious reverence for fur-lined garments.
It became the dream of our young life to possess such an overcoat, a
gold cigarette-case, and three or four wives whom we had married for
their money. But you know how disappointing these dreams are apt to be.
We didn't even get the wives.
The nearest we ever came to a fur-lined coat was owning one with a
Persian-lamb collar. We never cared much for that coat. There was an
air of superficiality about it. Not that we have anything against
Persian-lamb collars so far as they go. But they don't go very far.
Besides, they make one look like a police-lieutenant or a chauffeur.
Mind you, it was a swagger garment in its way. In addition to the fur
collar it had a double-breasted front, and was fastened with
barrel-shaped arrangements instead of buttons. It had everything
pertaining to a fur-lined coat, except the fur-lining.
Of course, you wouldn't notice that vital defect unless we opened the
coat or took it off. And we never did either in public. We have sat in
street-cars up near the stove with that coat buttoned up to our chin,
until people have moved away from us under the impression that we had
the measles. We have almost had to thrash butlers to prevent them
helping us off with it--if there is anything obstinate on earth, it is a
butler with the idea that you are hiding something from him. We have
even retired into dark doorways to get a cent out of our pants-pocket to
buy a paper, rather than open the coat on a busy corner.
In spite of these precautions, we always had the feeling that people
knew about that coat and discussed it. They had a way of looking at it
as though they thought the collar had been put on with safety-pins. We
grew to hate the coat. Finally the moths got it. That is, they bored
holes in it--probably looking for the lining.
Still our thwarted ambition to possess a real fur-lined coat has
persisted. We want it as badly as we ever did. It is nothing to us
that they have gone out of exclusive style. We care not that every
second man on the street has a coat with some sort of hairy stuff on the
collar and the interior draped with the mortal remains of the commoner
sort of muskrat. We are still faithful to our early love.