er little table is full of them and she pulls open a drawer and shows
you some more, ranged in rows. There are files and steel biters and
pigeon-toed scissors and scrapers and polishers and things; and wads of
cotton with which to staunch the blood of the wounded, and bottles of
liquid and little medicinal looking jars full of red paste; and a cut
glass crock with soap suds in it and a whole lot of little orange wood
stobbers.

In the interest of truth I have taken the pains to enquire and I have
ascertained that these stobbers are invariably of orange wood. Say what
you will, the orange tree is a hardy growth. Every February you read in
the papers that the Florida orange crop, for the third consecutive time
since Christmas has been entirely and totally destroyed by frost and yet
there is always an adequate supply on hand of the principal products
of the orange-phosphate for the soda fountains, blossoms for the bride,
political sentiment for the North of Ireland and little sharp stobbers
for the manicure lady. Speaking as an outsider I would say that there
ought to be other varieties of wood that would serve as well and bring
about the desired results as readily--a good thorny variety of poison
ivy ought to fill the bill, I should think. But it seems that orange
wood is absolutely essential. A manicure lady could no more do a
manicure properly without using an orange wood stobber at certain
periods than a cartoonist could draw a picture of a man in jail without
putting a ball and chain on him or a summer resort could get along
without a Lover's Leap within easy walking distance of the hotel. It
simply isn't done, that's all.

Well, as I was saying, she gets out her tool kit and goes to work
on you. You didn't dream that there were so many things--mainly of
a painful nature--that could be done to a single finger nail and you
flinch as you suddenly remember that you have ten of them in all,
counting thumbs in with fingers. She takes a finger nail in hand and she
files it and she trims it and she softens it with hot water and hardens
it with chemicals and parboils it a little while and then she cuts off
the hang nails--if there aren't any hang nails there already she'll
make a few--and she shears away enough extra cuticle to cover quite a
good-sized little boy. She goes over you with a bristle brush, and warms
up your nerve ends until you tingle clear back to your dorsal fin and
then she takes one of those orange wood sto