people and
learn their impressions? Then I can compare these with my own
experiences, when they come. You would not send a blind man out on the
street unled."

Archie Weil laughed deliciously.

"You are ingenious, when you should only be ingenuous," he replied. "You
do not act at all like the young man from Mars that I have in mind.
Perhaps, nevertheless, you are not wholly wrong, for even my traveler
from that planet might have to ask his way to the nearest town.
Supposing you had just reached the earth, and had met me with a thousand
questions. What could I answer that would be of any use?"

Mr. Roseleaf reflected a moment.

"You could tell me your idea of a perfect woman," he suggested.

"Well, I will," said Weil, glancing meaningly at Mr. Gouger. "The
perfect woman is about nineteen years of age. She is neither very light
nor very dark. Her eyes are hazel, with a touch of gray in them. She
measures, say, five feet, four inches in height, and--about--twenty-two
inches around the waist. She has a plump arm, not too fleshy, a
well-made leg, a head set on her shoulders with enough neck to give it
freedom and grace of movement, but not sufficient to warrant comparison
with a swan, or even a goose. Her hands match her feet, being not too
slender nor too dainty. Her hips are medium, but not bulging. She weighs
in the vicinity of a hundred and twenty-five pounds. And her hair--there
is but one color for a woman's hair--is Titian red."

The young man had taken out his note-book and rapidly sketched this list
of attractions.

"Every woman cannot have Titian hair," remarked Mr. Gouger. "Would you
condemn one with all the other attributes on account of missing that?"

"I would, decidedly," was the reply, "when it is obtained so easily. I
think it only costs two dollars a bottle, for the finest shade. Have
you written it all down, Mr. Roseleaf?"

The young man ran over his notes.

"I have it--all but the hair," he said. "Of course I could not forget
that."

"Very well. And this hair must be long enough, but not too long,
remember, for everything unduly accentuated spoils a woman. It should
hang about five inches below the waist, when unfastened, and be thick
enough to make a noticeable coil. There should be sufficient to hide her
face and her lover's when he takes her in his arms."

Mr. Roseleaf started slightly.

"Then she should have a lover?" he remarked, curiously.

"Undoubtedly. Else why the hair and the a