ion that you
need to be manicured. Once you catch that disease there is no hope for
you. There are ways of curing you of almost any habit except manicuring.
You get so that you aren't satisfied unless your nails run down about a
quarter of an inch further than nails were originally intended to run,
and unless they glitter freely you feel strangely distraught in company.
Inasmuch as no male creature's finger nails will glitter with the
desired degree of brilliancy for more than twenty-four short and
fleeting hours after a treatment you find yourself constantly in the
act of either just getting a manicure or just getting over one. It is
an expensive habit, too; it takes time and it takes money. There's the
fixed charge for manicuring in the first place and then there's the tip.
Once there was a manicure lady who wouldn't take a tip, but she is now
no more. Her indignant sisters stabbed her to death with hat pins and
nail-files. Manicuring as a public profession is a comparatively recent
development of our civilization. The fathers of the republic and the
founders of the constitution, which was founded first and has been
foundering ever since if you can believe what a lot of people in
Congress say--they knew nothing of manicuring. Speaking by and large,
they only got their thumbs wet when doing one of three things--taking a
bath, going in swimming or turning a page in a book. Washington probably
was never manicured nor Jefferson nor Franklin; it's a cinch that Daniel
Boone and Israel Putnam and George Rogers Clark weren't and yet it is
generally conceded that they got along fairly well without it. But as
the campaign orators are forever pointing out from the hustlers and the
forum, this is an age calling for change and advancement. And manicuring
is one of the advancements that likewise calls for the change--for fifty
cents in change anyhow and more if you are inclined to be generous with
the tip.

Shall you ever forget your first manicure? The shan'ts are unanimously
in the majority. It seems an easy thing to walk into a manicure parlor
or a barber shop and shove your hands across a little table to a strange
young woman and tell her to go ahead and shine 'em up a bit--the way you
hear old veteran manicurees saying it. It seems easy, I say, and looks
easy; but it isn't as easy as it seems. Until you get hardened, it
requires courage of a very high order. You, the abashed novice, see
other men sitting in the front window of