t trotters, wear our shoes and keep
them from wrinkling. No valet could do more. And as for laying out our
clothes, has not the kind Clothing Industry provided handy manuals of
instruction? With their assistance any man can lay out the garments
proper to any function, be it a morning dig in the garden, a noon
wedding at the White House, or (if you can conceive it) a midnight
supper with Mrs. Carrie Nation.

And yet--sometimes, that indignation we feel at having to dress
ourselves in the morning, we feel again at having to undress ourselves
at night. Then indeed are our clothes a remembrancer of our lost
innocency. We think only of Adam going to bed. We forget that, properly
speaking, poor innocent Adam had no bed to go to. And we forget also
that in all the joys of Eden was none more innocent than ours when we
have just put on a new suit.

IN THE CHAIR

About once in so often a man must go to the barber for what, with
contemptuous brevity, is called a haircut. He must sit in a big chair, a
voluminous bib (prettily decorated with polka dots) tucked in round his
neck, and let another human being cut his hair for him. His head, with
all its internal mystery and wealth of thought, becomes for the time
being a mere poll, worth two dollars a year to the tax-assessor: an
irregularly shaped object, between a summer squash and a cantaloupe,
with too much hair on it, as very likely several friends have advised
him. His identity vanishes.

As a rule, the less he now says or thinks about his head, the better: he
has given it to the barber, and the barber will do as he pleases with
it. It is only when the man is little and is brought in by his mother,
that the job will be done according to instructions; and this is because
the man's mother is in a position to see the back of his head. Also
because the weakest woman under such circumstances has strong
convictions. When the man is older the barber will sometimes allow him
to see the haircut cleverly reflected in two mirrors; but not one man in
a thousand--nay, in ten thousand--would dare express himself as
dissatisfied. After all, what does he know of haircuts, he who is no
barber? Women feel differently; and I know of one man who, returning
home with a new haircut, was compelled to turn round again and take what
his wife called his 'poor' head to another barber by whom the haircut
was more happily finished. But that was exceptional. And it happened to
that man but once.