Part 7

We had to hunt through our pockets for a five-cent piece to put in the box. It was a very painful moment, and naturally the only nickle we owned hid itself amid a mass of coppers--we had enough of them to bust our suspenders. And while we hunted, the conductor stood there and shook the box belligerently under our nose.

Therefore, we repeat, let us by all means have more manners--manners for street-car conductors and plumbers and elevator-men and the masses generally. Not even bank-clerks are altogether above reproach in this respect. We have had several rather regrettable experiences with bank-clerks--usually in connection with slight over-draughts. And yet bank-clerks are generally regarded as the budding Chesterfields of the financial world.

Talking of Chesterfield reminds us of that period in our development at which his "Letters" burst upon us as a brilliant and a guiding star. We were about sixteen, and our voice still oscillated between a squeaking treble and a booming bass. We were also having considerable difficulty in keeping our extremities decently within the compass of our clothes.

Our manners at that time were those of a breezy but well-intentioned caveman. No effete conventions for us!--no, sir, nothing but the simple, unaffected utterance of the heart. It was our aim to be a rough diamond, a fellow whose shaggy exterior concealed a beautiful soul, and whom people would come to understand and love after a long time--maybe, after we were dead. We could see ourself smiling peacefully in our padded coffin, while the family wept all over the oxidized-silver plate bearing our name and two dates--n-n-nothing m-m-more!

Perhaps this shaggy-breast-and-heart-of-gold business was not "getting across" as successfully as we had hoped. Perhaps we had grown weary of doing little acts of kindness and of love in a rude, untutored way. Or perhaps the time was merely ripe for a new phase of our social development. Anyhow, we one day picked up Lord Chesterfield's "Letters to My Son," and at a bound became a suave and graceful man of the world, concealing under a smile of wistful charm a cynical and disillusioned heart. Whatever might be the bitterness of our regrets, as befitted a man who had known life and women and had suffered, no shadow disturbed the serenity of our brow. We continued to smile and bow with the old nonchalant grace, as though it were roses, roses all the way. This was the impression we tried to convey, at any rate.

The family received our change of heart and manner in a spirit of levity against which our new ideals were not always proof--but you know the gentle way of families. Instead of teaching the young idea how to shoot, they are apt to suggest that it ought to go out and shoot itself. Naturally we suffered, and not unresentfully. In fact, we so far forgot ourself as to try to lick our younger brother--a very un-Chesterfieldian endeavor, and not entirely successful. He had a rushing style of fighting which--but there are bygones which had best be has-beens.

Of course, we have long since realized that it isn't wise to carry even so good a thing as manners to an over-elaborate extreme. Not long ago we had an instance of this--which brings us back to a street-car again. Wonderful how much one can learn in those humble but interesting conveyances! It was a crowded car, and we got up when a statuesque young woman in a very tight skirt stood right in front of us. We got up as gracefully as the movement of the car would permit, and hanging on a strap with the skill of long practice we adroitly removed our hat and bowed. We wanted to let her know that our action was the expression of a distant but chivalrous respect.

The statuesque young woman never quivered a hair of her expensive willow-plume, but stared penetratingly at a male collar-ad just over her head. Perhaps she had not seen us in her reverie. Perhaps the face of the young gentleman in the dreadfully conspicuous collar reminded her of someone she knew or loved or both--though we have never known any human being to look like those faces, and certainly would not think of loving him if he did.

Whatever the reason she certainly did not see us. We waited for a block or two, and then we made bold to touch her arm just above the chain of her beaded bag--it looked like something the Shah of Persia would wear.

"Madam," we said in our most mellow and flute-like tone, "won't you take this seat?"

She flashed on us a pair of large, dark pupils--belladonna, we presume--and said in a voice like the drip of an icicle in a cemetery, "I don't care to sit down."

That was all--no "Thank you" or "Much obliged" or any other of the ready phrases of casual courtesy. Just, "I don't care to sit down."

It was an unfortunate and deucedly embarrassing experience. We didn't like to sit down again--in our confusion we would probably have sat in someone else's lap. And yet it seemed frightfully silly for the two of us to go on standing there in front of that empty seat. So we stopped the car and got off half a mile from home.

Now, why did she do that? Was she afraid that if she sat down and said, "Thank you," we might presume on her graciousness to make a few timely remarks about the weather, and after a brief survey of the Russian situation or the newest thing in "movies," should end up by offering her some gum? Or, on the other hand was she a suffragette who refused to be put on a basis of inequality and treated as a member of a weaker sex? Did she see in our action the gloating superiority of man the master?

Then again she may have been unwilling to sit down because--well, 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!

*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!