not yet come to think so. To the average person, especially to Mrs.
Grundy, who is really the most valuable customer a department store has,
the impression given by bobbed hair is one of frivolity or eccentricity.
The impression given the customer as she enters a store is a most
important item; the head of the store knew it, and therefore he placed
the ban on bobbed hair. Whichever side we take in this particular case
this is true: The business woman should give, like the business man, an
impression of dependability, and she cannot do it if her appearance is
abnormal, or if her mind is divided between how she is looking and what
she is doing.

It is almost funny that we let the faults and mannerisms of other people
affect us to such an extent. They are nothing to us, and yet a man can
work himself into a perfect frenzy of temper merely by looking at or
talking to another who has a fidgety way of moving about, a dainty
manner of using his hands, or a general demean--or that is delicate and
ladylike. Men like what the magazines call "a red-blooded, two-fisted,
he-man." But the world is big enough to accommodate us all whether the
blood in our veins is red or blue, and it is perfectly silly for a man
to throw himself into a rage over some harmless creature who happens to
exasperate him simply because he is alive.

It is an altogether different matter when it is a question of one man
taking liberties with another. Most people object to the physical
nearness of others. It is the thing that makes the New York subways
during the rush hours such a horror. It is not pleasant to have a person
so near that his breath is against your face, and there are not many men
who enjoy being slapped on the back, punched in the ribs, or held fast
by a buttonhole or a coat lapel. A safe rule is never to touch another
person. He may resent it.

The garrulous or impertinent talker is almost as objectionable as the
hail-fellow-well-met, slap-on-the-back fellow. Charles Dickens has a
record of this kind of American in the book which he wrote after his
visit in this country: "Every button in his clothes said, 'Eh, what's
that? Did you speak? Say that again, will you?' He was always wide
awake, always restless; always thirsting for answers; perpetually
seeking and never finding....

"I wore a fur great-coat at that time, and before we were well clear of
the wharf, he questioned me concerning it, and its price, and where I
bought it, and when, an