"OH, WELL, YOU KNOWHOW WOMEN ARE!" BYIRVIN S. COBB Author of "The Life of the Party, ""Back Home, " "Old Judge Priest, " etc. NEW YORKGEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY THE CROWELL PUBLISHING COMPANY PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA "OH, WELL, YOU KNOW HOW WOMEN ARE!" She emerges from the shop. She is any woman, and the shop from which sheemerges is any shop in any town. She has been shopping. This does notimply that she has been buying anything or that she has contemplatedbuying anything, but merely that she has been shopping--a very differentpursuit from buying. Buying implies business for the shop; shoppingmerely implies business for the clerks. As stated, she emerges. In the doorway she runs into a woman of heracquaintance. If she likes the other woman she is cordial. But if shedoes not like her she is very, very cordial. A woman's aversion foranother woman moving in the same social stratum in which she herselfmoves may readily be appraised. Invariably it is in inverse ratio to theapparent affection she displays upon encountering the object of herdisfavor. Why should this be? I cannot answer. It is not given for us toknow. Very well, then, she meets the other woman at the door. They stop forconversation. Two men meeting under the same condition wouldmechanically draw away a few paces, out of the route of persons passingin or out of the shop. No particular play of the mental processes wouldactuate them in so doing; an instinctive impulse, operating mechanicallyand subconsciously, would impel them to remove themselves from the mainpath of foot travel. But this woman and her acquaintance take root rightthere. Persons dodge round them and glare at them. Other persons bumpinto them, and are glared at by the two traffic blockers. Where theystand they make a knot of confusion. But does it occur to either of them to suggest that they might stepaside, five feet or ten, and save themselves, and the pedestrian classesgenerally, a deal of delay and considerable annoyance? It does not. Itnever will. If the meeting took place in a narrow passageway or on apopulous staircase or at the edge of the orbit of a set of swingingdoors or on a fire escape landing upon the front of a burning building, while one was going up to aid in the rescue and the other was comingdown to be saved--if it took place just outside the Pearly Gates on theLast Day when the quick and the dead, called up for judgment, werestreaming in through the portals--still would they behave thus. Wherethey met would be where they stopped to talk, regardless of theconsequences to themselves, regardless of impediment to the movements oftheir fellow beings. Having had her say with her dear friend or her dear enemy, as the casemay be, our heroine proceeds to the corner and hails a passing streetcar. Because her heels are so high and her skirts are so snug, she takesabout twice the time to climb aboard that a biped in trousers wouldtake. Into the car she comes, teetering and swaying. The car is no morethan comfortably filled. True, all the seats at the back where she hasentered are occupied; but up at the front there still is room foranother sittee or two. Does she look about her to ascertain whetherthere is any space left? I need not pause for reply. I know it already, and so do you. Midway of the aisle-length she stops and reaches for astrap. She makes an appealing picture, compounded of blindness, helplessness, and discomfort. She has clinging vine written all overher. She craves to cling, but there is no trellis. So she swings fromher strap. The passengers nearest her are all men. She stares at them, accusingly. One of them bends forward to touch her and tell her that there is roomfor her up forward; but now there aren't any seats left. Malepassengers, swinging aboard behind her, have already scrouged on by herand taken the vacant places. In the mind of one of the men in her immediate vicinity chivalrytriumphs over impatience. He gives a shrug of petulance, arises and begsher to have his seat. She is not entitled to it on any ground, savecompassion upon his part. By refusing to use the eyes in her head shehas forfeited all right to special consideration. But he surrenders hisplace to her and she takes it. The car bumps along. The conductor, making his rounds, reaches her. Sheknows he is coming; at least she should know it. A visit from theconductor has been a feature of every one of the thousands of street-carrides that she has taken in her life. She might have been getting herfare ready for him. There are a dozen handy spots where she might havehad a receptacle built for carrying small change--in a pocket in herskirt, in a fob at her belt, in her sleeve or under her cuff. Countingfob pockets and change pockets, a man has from nine to fifteen pocketsin his everyday garments. If also he is wearing an overcoat, add atleast three more pockets to the total. It would seem that she might havehad at least one dependable pocket. But she has none. The conductor stops, facing her, and meanwhile wearing on his face thatair of pained resignation which is common to the faces of conductors ontransportation lines that are heavily patronized by women travelers. Inmute demand he extends toward her a soiled palm. With hands encased inoversight gloves she fumbles at the catch of a hand bag. Having wrestedthe hand bag open, she paws about among its myriad and mysteriouscontents. A card of buttons, a sheaf of samples, a handkerchief, apowder puff for inducing low visibility of the human nose, a smallparcel of something, a nail file, and other minor articles are disclosedbefore she disinters her purse from the bottom of her hand bag. Anotherstruggle with the clasp of the purse ensues; finally, one by one, fivecoppers are fished up out of the depths and presented to the conductor. The lady has made a difficult, complicated rite of what might have beena simple and a swift formality. The car proceeds upon its course. She sits in her seat, wearing thatlook of comfortable self-absorption which a woman invariably wears whenshe is among strangers, and when she feels herself to be well dressedand making a satisfactory public appearance. She comes out of her trancewith a start on discovering that the car has passed her corner or isabout to pass it. All flurried, she arises and signals the conductorthat she is alighting here. From her air and her expression, we maygather that, mentally, she holds him responsible for the fact that shehas been carried on beyond her proper destination. The car having stopped, she makes her way to the rear platform and getsoff--gets off the wrong way. That is to say, she gets off with facetoward the rear. Thus is achieved a twofold result: She blocks the wayof anyone who may be desirous of getting aboard the car as she gets offof it, and if the car should start up suddenly, before her feet havetouched the earth, or before her grip on the hand rail has been relaxed, she will be flung violently down upon the back of her head. From the time he is a small boy until he is in his dotage, a man swingsoff a car, facing in the direction in which the car is headed. Then, apremature turn of a wheel pitches him forward with a good chance toalight upon his feet, whereas the same thing happening when he wasfacing in the opposite direction would cause him to tumble overbackward, with excellent prospects of cracking his skull. But inobedience to an immutable but inexplicable vagary of sex, a womanfollows the patently wrong, the obviously dangerous, the plainly awkwardsystem. As the conductor rings the starting bell, he glances toward a man who isriding on the rear platform. "Kin you beat 'um?" says the conductor. "I ast you--kin you beat 'um?" The man to whom he has put the question is a married man. Being in thisstate of marriage he appreciates that the longer you live with them theless able are you to fathom the workings of their minds with regard tomany of the simpler things of life. Speaking, therefore, from theheights of his superior understanding, he says in reply: "Oh, well, you know how women are!" We know how women are. But nobody knows why they are as they are. Please let me make myself clear on one point: As an institution, and asindividuals, I am for women. They constitute, and deservedly too, themost popular sex we have. Since away back yonder I have been in favorof granting them suffrage. For years I have felt it as a profoundconviction that the franchise should be expanded at one end and abridgedat the other--made larger to admit some of the women, made smaller tobar out some of the men. I couldn't think of very many reasons why theaverage woman should want to mix in politics, but if she did wish so tomix and mingle, I couldn't think of a single valid reason why she shouldnot have full permission, not as a privilege, not as a boon, but as acommon right. Nor could I bring myself to share, in any degree, theapprehension of some of the anti-suffragists who held that giving womenvotes would take many of them entirely out of the state of motherhood. Icannot believe that all the children of the future are going to be bornon the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November. Surely some ofthem will be born on other dates. Indeed the only valid argument againstwoman suffrage that I could think of was the conduct of some of thewomen who have been for it. To myself I often said: "Certainly I favor giving them the vote. Seeing what a mess the membersof my own sex so often make of the job of trying to run the country, Idon't anticipate that the Republic will go upon the shoals immediatelyafter women begin voting and campaigning and running for office. At thehelm of the ship of state we've put some pretty sad steersman from timeto time. Better the hand that rocks the cradle than the hand that rocksthe boat. We men have let slip nearly all of the personal liberties forwhich our fathers fought and bled--that is to say, fought the Britishersand bled the Injuns. Ever since the Civil War we have been so dummedbusy telling the rest of the world how free we were that we failed tosafeguard that freedom of which we boasted. "We commiserate the Englishman because he chooses to live under anhereditary president called a king, while we are amply content to go onliving under an elected king called a president. We cannot understandwhy he, a free citizen of the free-est country on earth, insists oncalling himself a subject; but we are reconciled to the fiction ofproclaiming ourselves citizens, while each day, more and more, we arebecoming subjects--the subjects of sumptuary legislation, the subjectsof statutes framed by bigoted or frightened lawgivers, the subjects ofarbitrary mandates and of arbitrary decrees, the subjects, the abject, cringing subjects, of the servant classes, the police classes, thelabor classes, the capitalistic classes. " Naturally, as a Democrat I have felt these things with enhancedbitterness when the Republicans were in office; nevertheless, I havefelt them at other times, too. And, continuing along this line ofthought, I have repeatedly said to myself: "In view of these conditions, let us give 'em the vote--eventually, butnot just yet. While still we have control of the machinery of the ballotlet us put them on probation, as it were. They claim to be rationalcreatures; very well, then, make 'em prove it. Let us give 'em the votejust as soon as they have learned the right way in which to get off of astreet car. " In this, though, I have changed my mind. I realize now that the demandwas impossible, that it was--oh, well, you know what women are! We have given woman social superiority; rather she has acquired itthrough having earned it. Shortly she will have been put on a basis ofpolitical equality with men in all the states of the Union. Now shethinks she wants economic equality. But she doesn't; she only thinks shedoes. If she should get it she would refuse to abide by its naturallimitations on the one side and its natural expansions for her sphereof economic development on the other. For, temperamentally, God sofashioned her that never can she altogether quit being the clinging vineand become the sturdy oak. She'll insist on having all the prerogativesof the oak, but at the same time she will strive to retain the specialconsiderations accorded to the vine which clings. If I know anythingabout her dear, wonderful, incomprehensible self, she belongs to the sexwhich would eat its cake and have it, too. Some men are constructedafter this design. But nearly all women are. Give her equal opportunities with men in business--put her on the samefooting and pay to her the same salary that a man holding a similar jobis paid. So far so good. But then, as her employer, undertake to handout to her exactly the same treatment which the man holding a likeposition expects and accepts. There's where Mr. Boss strikes a snag. Thesalary she will take--oh, yes--but she arrogates to herself the sweetboon of weeping when things distress her, and, when things harass her, of going off into tantrums of temper which no man in authority, howeverpatient, would tolerate on the part of another man serving under him. Grant to her equal powers, equal responsibilities, equal favors and apay envelope on Saturday night containing as much money as her maleco-worker receives. That is all very well; but seek, however gently, however tactfully, however diplomatically, to suggest to her that asimpler, more businesslike garb than the garb she favors would be thesane and the sensible thing for business wear in business hours. Andthen just see what happens. A working woman who, through the working day, dresses in plain, neatfrocks with no jangling bracelets upon her arms, no foolish furbelows ather wrists, no vain adornments about her throat, no exaggeratedcoiffure, is a delight to the eye and, better still, she fits thesetting of her environment. Two of the most competent and dependablehuman beings I know are both of them women. One is the assistant editorof a weekly magazine. The other is the head of an important departmentin an important industry. In the evening you would never find a womanbetter groomed or, if the occasion demand, more ornately rigged-out thaneither one of these young women will be. But always, while on duty, theywear a correct and proper costume for the work they are doing, and theymatch the picture. These two, though, are, I think, exceptions to therule of their sex. Trained nurses wear the most becoming uniforms, and the most suitable, considering their calling, that were ever devised. To the best of myknowledge and belief there is no record where a marriageable malepatient on the road to recovery and in that impressionable mood whichaccompanies the convalescence of an ordinarily healthy man, failed tofall in love with his nurse. A competent, professional nurse who has theadded advantage on her side of being comely--and it is powerfully hardfor her to avoid being comely in her spotless blue and starchywhite--stands more chances of getting the right sort of man for ahusband than any billionaire's daughter alive. But I sometimes wonder what weird sartorial eccentricities some of themwould indulge in did not convention and the standing laws of theirprofession require of them that they all dress after a given pattern. And if the owners and managers of big city shops once lifted the ruleprescribing certain modes for their female working staffs--if theyshould give their women clerks a free hand in choosing their ownwardrobes for store hours--well, you know how women are! Nevertheless and to the contrary notwithstanding, I will admit while Iam on this phase of my topic that there likewise is something to be saidin dispraise of my own sex too. In the other--and better half of thisliterary double sketch-team act, my admired and talented friend, Mrs. Mary Roberts Rinehart, cites chapter and verse to prove theunaccountable vagaries of some men in the matter of dress. There shemade but one mistake--a mistake of under-estimation. She mentionedspecifically some men; she should have included all men. The only imaginable reason why any rational he-biped of adult age clingsto the habiliments ordained for him by the custom and the tailors ofthis generation, is because he is used to them. A man can stand anythingonce he gets used to it because getting used to a thing commonly meansthat the habitee has quit worrying about it. And yet since the dawn oftime when Adam poked fun at Eve's way of wearing her fig-leaf and ondown through the centuries until the present day and date it has everbeen the custom of men to gibe at the garments worn by women. Take ourhumorous publications, which I scarcely need point out are edited bymen. Hardly could our comic weeklies manage to come out if the jokesabout the things which women wear were denied to them asfountain-sources of inspiration. To the vaudeville monologist his jokesabout his wife and his mother-in-law and to the comic sketch artist hispictures setting forth the torments of the stock husband trying tobutton the stock gown of a stock wife up her stock back--these aredependable and inevitable stand-bys. Women do wear maniacal garments sometimes; that there is no denying. Buton the other hand styles for women change with such frequency that noquirk of fashion however foolish and disfiguring ever endures for longenough to work any permanent injury in the health of its temporarilydeluded devotees. Nothing I can think of gets old-fashioned with suchrapidity as a feminine fashion unless it is an egg. If this season a woman's skirt is so scantily fashioned that as shehobbles along she has the appearance of being leg-shackled, like thelady called Salammbo, it is as sure as shooting that, come next season, she will have leapt to the other extreme and her draperies will be morethan amply voluminous. If this winter her sleeves are like unto sausagecasings for tightness, be prepared when spring arrives to see herwearing practically all the sleeves there are. About once in so oftenshe is found wearing a mode which combines beauty with saneness but thatoften is not very often. But even when they are at apogee of sartorial ridiculousness I maintainthat the garments of women, from the comfort standpoint, anyhow, are notany more foolish than the garments to which the average man is incurablyaddicted. If women are vassals to fashion men are slaves to convention, and fashion has the merit that it alters overnight, whereas conventionis a slow moving thing that stands still a long time before it doesmove. Convention is the wooden Indian of civilization; but fashion is amerry-go-round. In the Temperate zone in summertime, Everywoman looks to be cooler thanEveryman--and by the same token is cooler. In the winter she wearslighter garments than he would dream of wearing, and yet stays warmerthan he does, can stand more exposure without outward evidence ofsuffering than he can stand, and is less susceptible than he to coldsand grips and pneumonias. Compare the thinness of her heaviest outdoorwrap with the thickness of his lightest ulster, or the heft of herso-called winter suit with the weight of the outer garments which hewears to business, and if you are yourself a man you will wonder whyshe doesn't freeze stiff when the thermometer falls to the twenty-abovemark. Observe her in a ballroom that is overheated in the corners anddraughty near the windows, as all ballrooms are. Her neck and herthroat, her bosom and arms are bare. Her frock is of the filmiestgossamer stuff; her slippers are paper thin, her stockings the sheerestof textures, yet she doesn't sniff and her nose doesn't turn red and theskin upon her exposed shoulders refuses to goose-flesh. She is themarvel of the ages. She is neither too warm nor too cold; she is justright. Consider now her male companion in his gala attire. One minute heis wringing wet with perspiration; that is when he is dancing. The nextminute he is visibly congealing. That is because he has stopped to catchhis breath. Why this difference between the sexes? The man is supposed to be thehardier creature of the two, but he can't prove it. Of course there maybe something in the theory that when a woman feels herself to be smartlydressed, an exaltation of soul lifts her far above realization of bodilydiscomfort. But I make so bold as to declare that the real reason whyshe is comfortable and he is not, lies in the fact that despite alleccentricities of costume in which she sometimes indulges, Everywomangoes about more rationally clad than Everyman does. For the sake of comparing two horrible examples, let us take a womanesteemed to be over-dressed at all points and angles where she is notunder-dressed, and, mentally, let us place alongside her a man who bythe standards of his times and his contemporaries is conventionallygarbed. To find the woman we want, we probably must travel to New Yorkand seek her out in a smart restaurant at night. Occasionally she isfound elsewhere but it is only in New York, that city where so many ofthe young women are prematurely old and so many of the old women areprematurely young, that she abounds in sufficient profusion to become acommon type instead of an infrequent one. This woman is waging thatbattle against the mounting birthdays which nobody ever yet won. Herhair has been dyed in those rich autumnal tints which are so becoming toa tree in its Indian summer, but so unbecoming to a woman in hers. Richard K. Fox might have designed her jewelry; she glistens withdiamonds until she makes you think of the ice coming out of the HudsonRiver in the early spring. But about her complexion there is nosuggestion of a March thaw. For it is a climate-proof shellac. Hereyebrows are the self-made kind, and her lips were done by hand. Herskirt is too short for looks and too tight for comfort; she is tightlyprisoned at the waistline and not sufficiently confined in the bust. There is nothing natural or rational anywhere about her. She is asartificial as a tin minnow and she glitters like one. Next your attention is invited to the male of the species. He is assumedto be dressed in accordance with the dictates of good taste and with dueregard for all the ordinary proprieties. But is he? Before decidingwhether he is or isn't, let us look him over, starting from the feet andworking upward. A matter of inches above his insteps brings us to thebottom of his trouser-legs. Now these trouser-legs of his are morallycertain to be too long, in which event they billow down over his feet inslovenly and ungraceful folds, or they are too short, in which eventthere is an awkward, ugly cross-line just above his ankles. If he is athin man, his dress waistcoat bulges away from his breastbone so thepasserby can easily discover what brand of suspenders he fancies; but ifhe be stoutish, the waistcoat has a little way of hitching along up hismid-riff inch by inch until finally it has accordion-pleated itself inoverlapping folds thwartwise of his tummy, coyly exposing an inch or soof clandestine shirt-front. It requires great will-power on the part of the owner and constantwatchfulness as well to keep a fat man's dress waistcoat from behavinglike a railroad folder. His dinner coat or his tail coat, if he wears atail coat, is invariably too tight in the sleeves; nine times out of tenit binds across the back between the shoulders, and bulges out in apouch effect at the collar. His shirt front, if hard-boiled, is as coldand clammy as a morgue slab when first he puts it on; but as hot andsticky as a priming of fresh glue after he has worn it for half an hourin an overheated room--and all public rooms in America are overheated. Should it be of the pleated or medium well-done variety, no power onearth can keep it from appearing rumply and untidy; that is, no powercan if the wearer be a normal man. I am not speaking of professionalhe-beauties or models for the illustrations of haberdashers'advertisements in the magazines. His collar, which is a torturer'sdevice of stiff linen and yielding starch, is not a comparatively modernproduct as some have imagined. It really dates back to the SpanishInquisition where it enjoyed a great vogue. Faring abroad, he encloseshis head, let us say in a derby hat. Some people think the homeliestthing ever devised by man is Grant's Tomb. Others favor the St. LouisUnion Depot. But I am pledged to the derby hat. And the high ortwo-quart hat runs second. This being the case for and against the parties concerned, I submit tothe reader's impartial judgment the following question for a decision:Taking everything into consideration, which of these two really deservesthe booby prize for unbecoming apparel--the woman who plainly is dressedin bad form or the man who is supposed to be dressed in good form? Butthis I will say for him as being in his favor. He has sense enough towear plenty of pockets. And in his most infatuated moments he neverwears nether garments so tight that he can't step in 'em. Can I say asmuch for woman? I cannot. A few pages back I set up the claim that woman, considered as a sex andnot as an exceptional type, cannot divorce the social relation from theeconomic. I think of an illustration to prove my point: In business twomen may be closely associated. They may be room-mates besides; chums, perhaps, at the same club; may borrow money from each other and weareach other's clothes; and yet, so far as any purely confidentialrelation touching on the private sides of their lives is concerned, mayremain as far apart as the poles. It is hard to imagine two women, similarly placed, behaving after thesame common-sense standards. Each insists upon making a confidante ofher partner. Their intimacy becomes a thing complicated with extraneousissues, with jointly shared secrets, with disclosures as to personallikes and dislikes, which should have no part in it if there is to becontinued harmony, free from heart-burnings or lacerated feelings, orfancied slights or blighted affections. Sooner or later, too, thepersonality of the stronger nature begins to overshadow the personalityof the weaker. Almost inevitably there is a falling-out. I do not share the somewhat common opinion that in their friendshipswomen are less constant than men are. But the trouble with them is thatthey put a heavier burden upon friendship than so delicate, so sensitivea sentiment as real friendship is was ever meant to bear. Something hasto give way under the strain. And something does. To be sure there is an underlying cause in extenuation for thistemperamental shortcoming which in justice to the ostensibly weaker sexshould be set forth here. Even though I am taking on the rôle of Devil'sAdvocate in the struggle to keep woman from canonizing herself by mainforce I want to be as fair as I can, always reserving the privilegewhere things are about even, of giving my own side a shade the better ofit. The main tap-root reason why women confide over-much and too much inother women is because leading more circumscribed lives than mencommonly lead they are driven back upon themselves and into themselvesand their sisters for interests and for conversational material. Taking them by and large they have less with which to concern themselvesthan their husbands and their brothers, their fathers and their sonshave. Therefore they concern themselves the more with what is available, which, at the same time, oftener than not, means some other woman'sprivate affairs. A woman, becoming thoroughly imbued with an idea, becomes, ninety-ninetimes out of a hundred, a creature of one idea. Everything else on earthis subordinated to the thing--cabal, reform, propaganda, crusade, movement or what not--in which she is interested. Now the average manmay be very sincerely and very enthusiastically devoted to a cause; butit does not necessarily follow that it will obsess him through everywaking hour. But the ladies, God bless 'em--and curb 'em--are not builtthat way. A woman wedded to a cause is divorced from all else. Sheresents the bare thought that in the press of matters and the clash ofworlds, mankind should for one moment turn aside from her pet cause toconcern itself with newer issues and wider motives. From a devotee shesoon is transformed into a habitee. From being an earnest advocate sheadvances--or retrogrades--to the status of a plain bore. To be a commonnuisance is bad enough; to be a common scold is worse, and presently sheturns scold and goes about railing shrilly at a world that criminallypersists in thinking of other topics than the one which lies closest toher heart and loosest on her tongue. Than a woman who is a scold there is but one more exasperating shape ofa woman and that is the woman who, not content with being the mostcontradictory, the most paradoxical, the most adorable of the Almighty'screations--to wit, a womanly woman--tries, among men, to be a goodfellow, so-called. But that which is ordinarily a fault may, on occasion of extraordinarystress, become the most transcendent and the most admirable of virtues. I think of this last war and of the share our women and the women ofother lands have played in it. No one caviled nor complained at theone-ideaness of womankind while the world was in a welter of woe andslaughter. Of all that they had, worth having, our women gave and gaveand gave and gave. They gave their sons and their brothers, theirhusbands and their fathers, to their country; they gave of their timeand of their energies and of their talent; they gave of their wonderfulmercy and their wonderful patience, and their yet more wonderfulcourage; they gave of the work of their hands and the salt of theirsouls and the very blood of their hearts. For every suspected womanslacker there were ten known men slackers--yea, ten times ten and ten tocarry. Each day, during that war, the story of Mary Magdalene redeemed wassomewhere lived over again. Every great crisis in the war-torn landsproduced its Joan of Arc, its Florence Nightingale, its Clara Barton. Tothe women fell the tasks which for the most part brought no publicrecognition, no published acknowledgments of gratitude. For them, instead of the palms of victory and the sheaves of glory, there were thecrosses of sacrifice, the thorny diadems of suffering. We cannotconceive of men, thus circumstanced, going so far and doing so much. Butthe women-- Oh, well, you know how women are! "ISN'T THATJUST LIKE A MAN!" BYMARY ROBERTS RINEHART Author of "Dangerous Days, ""The Amazing Interlude, " "K, " etc. NEW YORKGEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY THE CROWELL PUBLISHING COMPANY PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA "ISN'T THAT JUST LIKE A MAN!" I understand that Mr. Irvin Cobb is going to write a sister article tothis, and naturally he will be as funny as only he can be. It is alwaysallowable, too, to be humorous about women. They don't mind, becausethey are accustomed to it. But I simply dare not risk my popularity by being funny about men. Why, bless their hearts (Irvin will probably say of his subject, "bless theirlittle hearts. " Odd, isn't it, how men always have big hearts and womenlittle ones? But we are good packers. We put a lot in 'em) I could beterribly funny, if only women were going to read this. They'dunderstand. They know all about men. They'd go up-stairs and put on anegligee and get six baby pillows and dab a little cold cream aroundtheir eyes and then lie down on the couch and read, and they would allthink I must have known their men-folks somewhere. But the men would read it and cancel the order for my next book, and sayI must be a spinster, living a sort of in-bred existence. Why, I know atleast a hundred good stories about one man alone, and if I publishedthem he would either grow suspicious and wonder who the man is, or, getsulky and resent bitterly being laughed at! Which is exactly like a man. Just little things, too, like always insisting he was extremely calm athis wedding, when the entire church saw him step off a platform and dropseven feet into tropical foliage. You see, women quite frequently have less wit than men, but they don'ttake themselves quite so seriously; they view themselves with a certainsomewhat ironical humor. Men love a joke--on the other fellow. But yourreally humorous woman loves a joke on herself. That's because women areless conventional, of course. I can still remember the face of thehorrified gentleman I met one day on the street after luncheon, who hadunconsciously tucked the corner of his luncheon napkin into his watchpocket along with his watch, and his burning shame when I observed thathis new fashion was probably convenient but certainly novel. And I contrast it with the woman, prominent in the theatrical world, whohad been doing a little dusting--yes, they do, but it is neverpublished--before coming to lunch with me. She walked into one of thelargest of the New York hotels, hatted, veiled and sable-ed, and wearingtied around her waist a large blue-and-white checked gingham apron. Now I opine (I have stolen that word from Irvin) that under thosecircumstances, or something approximating them, such as pajama trousers, or the neglect to conceal that portion of a shirt not intended for thepublic eye, almost any man of my acquaintance would have made a wildbolt for the nearest bar, hissing like a teakettle. Note: This waswritten when the word bar did not mean to forbid or to prohibit. Thegingham-apron lady merely stood up smilingly, took it off and gave it tothe waiter, who being a man returned it later wrapped to look as muchlike a club sandwich as possible. Oh, they're conventional, these men, right enough! Now and then one ofthem gathers a certain amount of courage and goes without a hat to savehis hair, or wears sandals to keep his feet cool, and he is immediatelydismissed as mad. I know one very young gentleman who nearly broke up ajuvenile dance by borrowing his mother's pink silk stockings for socksand wearing her best pink ribbon as a tie. How many hours do you suppose were wasted by the new army practicingsalutes in front of a mirror? A good many right arms to-day, back in"civies, " have a stuttering fit whenever they approach a uniform. And Iknow a number of conventional gentlemen who are suffering hours oftorment because they can't remember, out of uniform, to take off theirhats to the women they meet. War is certainly perdition, isn't it? Andnumbers of times during the late unpleasantness I have seen new officersstanding outside a general's door, trying to remember the rule foraddressing a superior, and cap or no cap while not wearing side arms. You know how a woman would do it. She would give a tilt to her hat and apull here and there, and then she would walk in and say: "I know it's perfectly horrible, but I simply can't remember theetiquette of this sort of thing. Please do tell me, General. " And the general, who has only eleven hundred things to do before eatinga bite of lunch on the top of his desk, will get up and gravely instructher. Which is exactly like a man, of course. Men overdo etiquette sometimes, because of a conventional fear ofslipping up somewhere. There was a nice Red Cross major in France whohad had no instruction in military matters, and had no arrogancewhatever. So he used to salute all the privates and the M. P. 's beforethey had a chance. He was usually asking the road to somewhere or other, and they would stand staring after him thoughtfully until he was quiteout of sight. And as a corollary to this conventionality, how wretched men are whenthey are placed in false positions! Nobody likes it, of course, but awoman can generally get out of it. Men think straighter than women, butnot so fast. I dined one night on shipboard with the captain of thetransport on which I came back from France, and there was an armychaplain at the table. So, as chaplains frequently say grace beforemeat, I put a hand on the knee of a young male member of my familybeside me and kept it there, ready for a squeeze to admonish silence. But the chaplain did not say grace, and the man on my right suddenlyturned out to be a perfectly strange general in a state of helplessuneasiness. I have a suspicion that not even the absolute impeccabilityof my subsequent conduct convinced him that I was not a designing woman. But, although we are discussing men, as all women know, there are reallyno men at all. There are grown-up boys, and middle-aged boys, andelderly boys, and even sometimes very old boys. But the essentialdifference is simply exterior. Your man is always a boy. He growstidier, and he gathers up a mass of heterogeneous information, and inthe strangest possible fashion as the years go on, boards have to be putinto the dining-room table, and the shoe bill becomes somethingterrible, and during some of his peregrinations he feels rather like acomet with a tail. The dentist's bills and where to go for the summer anddo-you-think-the-nurse-is-as-careful-as-she-should-be-with-baby's-bottlesmake him put on a sort of surface maturity. But it never fools hiswomankind. Deep down he still believes in Santa Claus, and would like toget up at dawn on the Fourth of July and throw a firecracker through thecook's window. That is the reason women are natural monogamists. They know they have tobe one-man women, because the one man is so always a boy, and has tohave so much mothering and looking after. He has to be watched for fearhis hair gets too long, and sent to the tailor's now and then forclothes. And if someone didn't turn his old pajamas into scrub rags andsilver cloths, he would go on wearing their ragged skeletons long afterthe flesh had departed hence. (What comforting rags Irvin Cobb's pajamasmust make!) And then of course now and then he must be separated forcibly from hisold suits and shoes. The best method, as every woman knows, is to givethem to someone who is going on a long, long journey, else he willfollow and bring them back in triumph. This fondness for what is old isa strange thing in men. It does not apply to other things--save cheeseand easy chairs and some kinds of game and drinkables. In the case ofcaps, boots, and trousers it is akin to mania. It sometimes applies todress waistcoats and evening ties, but has one of its greatestexacerbations (beat that word, Irvin) in the matter of dressing gowns. If by any chance a cigarette has burned a hole in the dressing gown, ittakes on the additional interest of survival, and is always hung, holeout, where company can see it. Full many a gentleman, returning from the wars, has found that hisheart's treasures have gone to rummage sales, and--you know the story ofthe man who bought his dress suit back for thirty-five cents. I am personally acquainted with a man who owns a number of pairs ofbedroom slippers, nice leather ones, velvet ones, felt ones. They sit ina long row in his closet, and sit and sit. And when that man preparesfor his final cigarette at night--and to drop asleep and burn anotherhole in his dressing gown, or in the chintz chair cover, or the carpet, as Providence may will it--he wears on his feet a pair of red knittedbedroom slippers with cords that tie around the top and dangle and triphim up. Long years ago they stretched, and they have been stretchingever since, until now each one resembles an afghan. Will he give them up? He will not. There is something feline about a man's love for old, familiar things. Iknow that it is a popular misconception to compare women with cats andmen with dogs. But the analogy is clearly the other way. Just run over the cat's predominant characteristic and check them off:The cat is a night wanderer. The cat loves familiar places, and thehearthside. (And, oddly enough, the cat's love of the hearthside doesn'tinterfere with his night wanderings!) The cat can hide under the suavestexterior in the world principles that would make a kitten blush if ithad any place for a blush. The cat is greedy as to helpless things. Andheavens, how the cat likes to be petted and generally approved! It likeslove, but not all the time. And it likes to choose the people itconsorts with. It is a predatory creature, also, and likes to be neatand tidy, while it sticks to its old trousers with a love that passethunderstanding--there, I've slipped up, but you know what I mean. Now women are like dogs, really. They love like dogs, a littleinsistently. And they like to fetch and carry, and come back wistfullyafter hard words, and learn rather easily to carry a basket. And afterthree years or so of marriage they learn to enjoy the bones ofconversation and sometimes even to go to the mat with them. (Oh, Irvin, I know that's dreadful!) Really, the only resemblance between men anddogs is that they both rather run to feet in early life. This fondness for old clothes and old chairs and familiar places issomething women find hard to understand. Yet it is simple enough. It iscompounded of comfort and loyalty. Men are curiously loyal. They are loyal to ancient hats and disreputableold friends and to some women. But they are always loyal to each other. This, I maintain, is the sole reason for alluding to them as thestronger and superior sex. They are stronger. They are superior. Theyare as strong as a trades union, only more so. They stand togetheragainst the rest of the world. Women do not. They have no impulse towardsolidarity. They fight a sort of guerilla warfare, each sniping frombehind her own tree. They are the greatest example of the weakness ofunorganized force in the world. But this male trades union is not due to affection. It is two-fold. Itis a survival from the days when men united for defense. Women didn'tunite. They didn't need to, and they couldn't have, anyhow. When thecave man went away to fight or to do the family marketing, he used toroll a large bowlder against the entrance to his stone mansion, and thusdiscouraged afternoon callers of the feminine sex who would otherwisehave dropped in for a cup of tea. Then he took away the rope ladder andcut off the telephone, and went away with a heart at peace to join theother males. They would do it now, if they could. But the real reason for their sex solidarity is their terriblealikeness. They understand each other. Knowing their own weaknesses, they know the other fellow's. So they stand by each other, sometimes outof sympathy, and occasionally out of fear. You see, it is not only atrades union, it is a mutual benefit society. Its only constitution isthe male Golden Rule--"You stick by me and I'll stick by you. " "We menmust stick together. " I'll confess that with a good many women it is, "You stick me and I'llstick you. " But that solidarity, primarily offensive and defensive, has also anelement in it that women seldom understand, and almost always resent. Not very many years ago a play ran in New York without a woman in thecast or connected with the story. There is one running very successfullynow in Paris. Both were written by men, naturally. Women cannot conceiveof the drama of life without women in it. But men can. The plain truth is that normal women need men all the time, but thatnormal men need women only a part of the time. They like to have them togo back to, but they do not need them in sight, or even within telephonecall. There are some hours of every day when you could repeat a man'swife's name to him through a megaphone, and he would have to come a longways back, from golf or pool or the ticker or the stock news, toremember who she is. When a man gets up a golf foursome he wants four men. When a woman doesit, she wants three. It is this ability to be happy without her that a woman neverunderstands. Her lack of understanding of it causes a good bit ofunhappiness, too. Men are gregarious; they like to be together. Butwomen gauge them by their own needs, and form dark surmises about theseharmless meetings, which are as innocuous and often as interesting asthe purely companionable huddlings of sheep in pasture. Women play bridge together to fill in the time until the five-thirty isdue. Men play bridge because they like to beat the other fellow. Mind you, I am not saying there are not strong and fine affections amongwomen. If it comes to that, there is often deeper devotion, perhaps, than among men. But I am saying that women do not care for women as asex, as men care for men. Men will die to save other men. Women willsacrifice themselves ruthlessly for children, but not for other women. Queer, isn't it? Yet not so queer. Women want marriage and a home. They should. And thereare more women than men. Even before the war there was, in Europe andAmerica, an extra sixth woman for every five men, and the sixth womanbrings competition. She bulls the market, and makes feminine sexsolidarity impossible. And, of course, added to that is the woman whorequires three or four men to make her happy, one to marry and supporther, and one to take her to the theater and to luncheon at Delmonico's, and generally fetch and carry for her, and one to remember her as shewas at nineteen and remain a bachelor and have a selfish, delightfullife, while blaming her. This makes masculine stock still higher, and asthere are always buyers on a rising market, competition amongwomen--purely unconscious competition--flourishes. So men hang together, and women don't. And men are the stronger sexbecause they are fewer! Obviously the cure is the elimination of that sixth woman, preferably byeuthanasia. (Look this up, Irvin. It's a good one. ) That sixth womanought to go. She has made men sought and not seekers. She ruins dinnerparties and is the vampire of the moving pictures. And after living arespectable life for years she either goes on living a respectable life, and stays with her sister's children while the family goes on a motortour, or takes to serving high-balls instead of afternoon tea, whilewearing a teagown of some passionate shade. It is just possible that suffrage will bring women together. It is justpossible that male opposition has in it this subconscious fear, thattheir superiority is thus threatened. They don't really want equality, you know. They love to patronize us a bit, bless them; and to tell usto run along and not bother our little heads about things that don'tconcern us. And, of course, politics has been their own privatemaneuvering ground, and--I have made it clear, I think, that they don'talways want us--here we are, about to drill on it ourselves, perhapsdrilling a mite better than they do in some formations, and standingright on their own field and telling them the mistakes they've made, andnot to take themselves too hard and that the whole game is a lot easierthan they have always pretended it was. They don't like it, really, a lot of them. Their solidarity isthreatened. Their superiority, and another sanctuary, as closed to womenas a monastery, or a club, is invaded. No place to go but home. Yet I have a sneaking sympathy for them. They were so terribly happyrunning things, and fighting wars, and coming back at night to throwtheir conversational bones around the table. It is rather awful to thinkof them coming home now and having some little woman say: "Certainly we are not going to the movies. Don't you know there is award caucus to-night?" There is a curious situation in the economic world, too. Business hasbeen the man's field ever since Cain and Abel went into the stock andfarming combine, with one of them raising grain for the other's cows, and taking beef in exchange. And the novelty is gone. But there's atruism here: Men play harder than they work; women work harder than theyplay. Women in business bring to it the freshness of novelty, and work attheir maximum as a sex. Men, being always boys, work _under_ theirmaximum. (Loud screams here. But think it over! How about shaking diceat the club after lunch, and wandering back to the office at three P. M. To sign the mail? How about golf? I'll wager I work more hours a daythan you, Irvin!) The plain truth is that if more men put their whole hearts into businessduring business hours, there would be no question of competition. As Ihave said, they think straighter than women, although more slowly. Theyhave more physical strength. They don't have sick headaches--unless theydeserve them. But they are vaguely resentful when some little woman, whohas washed the children and sent them off to school and straightened herhouse and set out a cold lunch, comes into the office at nine o'clockand works in circles all around them. But there is another angle to this "woman in the business world" ideathat puzzles women. Not long ago a clever woman whose husband does notresent her working, since his home and children are well looked after, said to me: "I've always been interested in what he had to say of his day at theoffice, but he doesn't seem to care at all about _my_ day. He seems soawfully self-engrossed. " The truth probably is that they are both self-engrossed, but women candissemble and men cannot. It is another proof of their invincibleboyishness, this total inability to pretend interest. Even the averagestman is no hypocrite. He tries it sometimes, and fails pitifully. Thesuccessful male dissembler is generally a crook. But the most honestwoman in the world is often driven to pretense, although she may call it_savoir faire_. She pretends, because pretense is the oil thatlubricates society. Have you ever seen a man when some neighbors who areunpopular drop in for an evening call? After they are gone, his wifesays: "I do wish you wouldn't bite the Andersons when they come in, Joe!" "Bite them! I was civil, wasn't I?" "Well, you can call it that. " He is ready to examine the window locks, but he turns and surveys her, and he is honestly puzzled. "What I can't make out, " he says, "is how you can fall all over yourselfto those people, when you know you detest them. Thank heavens, I'm nohypocrite. " Then he locks the windows and stalks up-stairs, and the hypocrite ofthe family smiles a little to herself. Because she knows that withouther there would be no society and no neighborhood calls, and thathonesty can be a vice, and hypocrisy a virtue. I know a vestryman of a church who sometimes plays bridge on Saturdaynights for money. What he loses doesn't matter, but what he wins hiswife is supposed to put on the plate the next morning. One Saturdaynight he gave her a large bill, and the next morning she placed a neatlyfolded green-back on the collection plate as he held it out to her. Hestood in the aisle and eyed the bill with suspicion. Then hedeliberately unfolded it, and held out the plate to her again. "Come over, Mazie, " he said. And Mazie came over with the balance. You know what a woman would have done. She would have marked the billwith her eye, and later on while waiting at the rear for the chairoffertory to end, she would have investigated. Then on the way home shewould have said: "I had a good notion to stand right there, Charlie Smith, and show youup. I wish I had. " But the point is that she wouldn't have. There is no moral whatever to this brief tale. But perhaps it is in love that men and women differ most vitally. NowNature, being extremely wise, gives the man in love the wisdom of theserpent and the wile of the dove (which is a most alluring bird in itslove-making). A man in love brings to it all his intelligence. And menlike being in love. Being in love is not so happy for a woman. She becomes emotional anddifficult, is either on the heights or in the depths. And the reason forthis is simple; love is a complex to a woman. She has to contend withnatural and acquired inhibitions. She both desires love and fears it. The primitive woman ran away from her lover, but like Lot's wife, shelooked back. I am inclined to think, however, that primitive womanlooked back rather harder than she ran. Be that as it may, women to-dayboth desire love and fear it. If men fear it, they successfully hide their cowardice. It is in their methods of making love that men cease to be alike. Up tothat point they are very similar; they all think that, having purchasedan automobile, they must vindicate their judgment by insisting upon itsvirtues, and a great many of them will spend as much money fixing overlast year's car as would almost buy a new one; they always think theydrive carefully, but that the fellow in the other car is either a roadhog or a lunatic who shouldn't have a license; they are mostly rathermoody before breakfast, although there is an obnoxious type that singsin the cold shower; they are all rather given to the practice ofbringing gifts to their wives when they have done something theyshouldn't; and they all have a tendency to excuse their occasionaldelinquencies by the argument that they never made anybody unhappy, andtheir weaknesses by the fact that God made them men. But it is in love that they are at their best, from the point of view ofthe one woman most interested. And it is in their love methods that theyshow the greatest variations from type. Certain things of course theyall do, buy new neckties, write letters which they read years later withamazement and consternation; keep a photograph in a drawer of the deskat the office, where the stenographer finds it and says to the officeboy: "Can you beat that? And not even pretty!" carry boxes of candyaround, hoping they look like cigars; and lie awake nights wonderingwhat she can see in him, and wondering if she is awake too. They are very dear and very humble and sheepish and self-conscious whenthey are in love, curious mixtures of determination and vacillation;about eighty per cent, however, being determination. But they lose foronce their sex solidarity, and play the game every man for himself. Roughly speaking (although who can speak roughly of them then? Or at anytime?) they divide into three types of lovers. There are men who are allthree, at different times of course. But these three classes of lovershave one thing in common. They want to do their own hunting. It givesthem a sense of power to think they have won out by sheer strength andwill. The truth about this is that no man ever won a woman who was actuallydifficult to get, and found it worth the effort afterwards. What realman ever liked kissing a girl who didn't want to be kissed? Love has gotto be mutual. Your lover is frequently more interested in being lovedthan in loving. And the trump cards are always the woman's. Thesegrown-up boys of ours are shy and self-depreciatory in love, and theyrun like deer when they think they are not wanted. So the woman has toplay a double game, and gets blamed for guile when it is only wisdom. Her instinct is to run, partly because she is afraid of love and partlybecause she has to appear to be pursued. But she has to limp a bit, andsit down and look back rather wistfully, and in the end of course shegoes lame entirely and is overtaken. This is the same instinct which makes the pheasant hen feign a brokenwing. There is a wonderful type of woman, however, who goes as straight to theman she loves as a homing pigeon to its loft. Taking, then, the three classes of men in the throes of the disease oflove, we have the following symptoms, diagnosis and prognosis. First. The average lover. Temperature remains normal, with slight risein the evenings. Continues to attend to business. Feeling of uneasinessif called by endearing names over office 'phone. Regular diet, butsmokes rather too much. Anxiety strongly marked as to how his incomewill cover a house and garage in the country, adding the cost of hiscommutation ticket, and shows tendency to look rather wistfully into toyshop-windows before Christmas. Diagnosis: Normal love. Prognosis: Probably permanent condition. [1] Second. The fearful lover. Temperature inclined to be sub-normal attimes. Physical type, a hulking brute of a man, liking small women, onlyhe feels coarse and rather gross when with them. He is the physical typegenerally attributed to the cave man, but this is an error. (See caveman, later. ) His timidity is not physical but mental, and is referableby the Freud theory to his early youth, when he was taught that big, overgrown boys did not tease kittens, but put them in their pockets andcarried them home. Has the kitten obsession still. Is six months gettingup enough courage to squeeze a five-and-a-half hand, and then crushes itto death. Reads poetry, and is very early for all appointments. Appetitesmall. Does not sleep. In small communities shows occasionalsemi-paralysis on the curb after Sunday evening service, and lets afellow half his size see her home. (See cave man, later. ) Is always inlove, but not with the same woman. Is easily hurt, and walks it off onSunday afternoons. Telephones with gentle persistence, and prefers themovies to the theater because they are dark. This type sometimes losesits gentleness after marriage, and always has an ideal woman in mind. Some one who walks like Pauline Frederick and smiles like MaryPickford. [2] Diagnosis: Normal love, with idealistic complications. Prognosis: Condition less permanent than in case A, as less essentiallymonogamous. Should be careful not to carry the search for the ideal toexcess. Third. The cave man. Temperature normally high, with dangerous rises. Physique rather under-sized, with prominent Adam's apple. Is attractedby large women, whom he dominates. Is assured, violent and jealous. Appetite fastidious. Takes sleeping powders during course of disease anduses telephone frequently to find out if the object of his affections islunching with another man. Is extremely possessive as to women, and hashad in early years a strong desire to take the other fellow's girl awayfrom him. Is pugnacious and intelligent, but has moments of greattenderness and charm. Shows his worst side to the neighbors and breathesfreely after nine o'clock P. M. , when no one has come to call. [3] Diagnosis: Normal love, with jealousy. Prognosis: A large family of daughters. A great many women believe that they can change men by marrying them. This is a mistake. Women make it because they themselves are pliable, but the male is firmly fixed at the age of six years, and remainsfundamentally the same thereafter. The only way to make a husband overaccording to one's ideas then would be to adopt him at an early age, sayfour. But who really wants to change them? Where would be the interestin marriage? To tell the truth, we like their weaknesses. It gives womenthat entirely private conviction they have that John would make an uttermess of things if they were not around. Men know better how to live than women. The average man gets more out oflife than the average woman. He compounds his days, if he be a healthy, normal individual, of work and play, and his play generally takes theform of fresh air and exercise. He has, frequently, more real charitythan his womankind, and by charity I mean an understanding of humanweakness and a tolerance of frailty. He may dislike his neighborsheartily, and snub them in prosperity, but in trouble he is quick withpractical assistance. And although often tactless, for tact and extremehonesty are incompatible, he is usually kind. There is often a selfishpurpose behind his altruism, his broad charitable organizations. But toindividual cases of distress he is generous, unselfish, and sacrificing. In politics he is individually honest, as a rule, but collectivelycorrupt. And this strange and disheartening fact is due to lethargy. Heis politically indolent, so he allows the few to rule, and this few istoo frequently in political life for what it can get and not what it cangive. Sins of omission may be grave sins. Yet he is individually honest in politics, and in most things, and that, partly at least, is because, pretty much overlaid with worldliness, hehas a deep religious conviction. But he has a terrible fear of lettinganyone know he has it. Indeed, he is shamefaced about all his emotions. He would sooner wear two odd shoes than weep at a funeral. Really, this article could run on forever. There's that particularlymanlike attitude of accusing women of slavishly following the fashions!Funny, isn't it, when you think about it? Do you think a man would weara striped tie with a morning coat when his haberdasher says others arewearing plain gray? Or a straw hat before the fifteenth of May? Haveyou ever watched the mental struggle between a dinner suit and eveningclothes? Do you suppose that women, realizing that the costume they worewas the ugliest ever devised, would continue wearing it because everyoneelse did? And then look at men's trousers and derby hats! It is men who are the slaves, double chained, of fashion. The onlycomfortable innovation in men's clothes made in a century was when somebrave spirit originated the shirtwaist man. Women saw its comfort, adopted and retained the shirtwaist. But the leaders of male fashiondictated that comfort was bad form, and on went all the coats again. Irvin Cobb is undoubtedly going to say that it is just like a woman towear no flannels in winter, and silk hose, and generally go about halfclad. But men are as over-dressed in summer as women are under-dressedin winter. But in spite of this slavish following of fashion, men are really morerational than women. They have the same mental processes. For thatreason they understand each other. Like the village fool who found thelost horse by thinking where he would go if he were a horse, a man knowswhat another man will do by fancying himself in the same circumstances. And women are called designing because they have fathomed thisfundamental simplicity of the male! A woman's emotions and hersensations and her thoughts are all complexes. She doesn't know herselfwhat she is going to do, and is frequently more astounded than anyoneelse at what she does do. It's a lot harder being a woman than a man. So--women know men better than men know women, and are rather like thelittle boy's definition of a friend: "A friend is a feller who knows allabout you, and likes you anyhow. " We do like them, dreadfully. Sometimes women have sighed and wonderedwhat the house would be like without overcoats thrown about in the hall, and every closet full of beloved old ragged clothes and shoes, and cigarashes over things, and wild cries for the ancient hat they gave thegardener last week to weed in. But quite recently the women of thiscountry and a lot of other countries have found out what even temporaryabsence means. A house without a man in it is as nice and tidy andpeaceful and attractive and cheerful as a grave in a cemetery. It is aspleasant as Mark Twain's celebrated combination of rheumatism and St. Vitus dance, and as empty as a penny-in-the-slot chocolate machine in arailway station. Not so very long ago there was a drawing in one of the magazines. Itshowed a row of faces, men with hooked noses, with cauliflower ears, with dish-faces, and flat faces, with smallpox scars, with hare lips. And underneath it said: "Never mind, every one of them is somebody'sdarling. " Women don't really care how their men look. But they want to look up tothem--which is a reason I haven't given before for their sexsuperiority. It is really forced on them! And they want them kind andeven a bit patronizing. Also they want them _well_, because a sick mancan come the closest thing in the world to biting the hand that feedshim. And loyal, of course, and not too tidy--and to be hungry at meals. And not to be too bitter about going out in the evenings. And the one thing they do not want is to have their men know how wellthey understand them. It is one of their pet little-boy conceits, thisbeing misunderstood. It has survived from the time of that earlypunishment when each and every one of them contemplated running off andgoing to sea. Most of them still contemplate that running off. Theyvisualize great spaces, and freedom, and tropic isles, and--well, youknow. "Where there ain't no Ten Commandments and a man can raise athirst. " (You know, Irvin!) Yes, they contemplate it every now and then, and then they go home, andput on a fresh collar for dinner, and examine the vegetable garden, andtake the children out in the machine for a few minutes' fresh air, andhave a pillow fight in the nursery, and--forget the other thing. Which is exactly like a man. [1] Will probably forget small attentions to his wife after marriage. [2] Will always remember small attentions to his wife after marriage, especially when conscience troubles him. [3] Receives constant attention from his family after marriage.