idn't turn his old pajamas into scrub rags and
silver cloths, he would go on wearing their ragged skeletons long after
the flesh had departed hence. (What comforting rags Irvin Cobb's pajamas
must make!)

And then of course now and then he must be separated forcibly from his
old suits and shoes. The best method, as every woman knows, is to give
them to someone who is going on a long, long journey, else he will
follow and bring them back in triumph. This fondness for what is old is
a strange thing in men. It does not apply to other things--save cheese
and easy chairs and some kinds of game and drinkables. In the case of
caps, boots, and trousers it is akin to mania. It sometimes applies to
dress waistcoats and evening ties, but has one of its greatest
exacerbations (beat that word, Irvin) in the matter of dressing gowns.
If by any chance a cigarette has burned a hole in the dressing gown, it
takes on the additional interest of survival, and is always hung, hole
out, where company can see it.

Full many a gentleman, returning from the wars, has found that his
heart's treasures have gone to rummage sales, and--you know the story of
the man who bought his dress suit back for thirty-five cents.

I am personally acquainted with a man who owns a number of pairs of
bedroom slippers, nice leather ones, velvet ones, felt ones. They sit in
a long row in his closet, and sit and sit. And when that man prepares
for his final cigarette at night--and to drop asleep and burn another
hole in his dressing gown, or in the chintz chair cover, or the carpet,
as Providence may will it--he wears on his feet a pair of red knitted
bedroom slippers with cords that tie around the top and dangle and trip
him up. Long years ago they stretched, and they have been stretching
ever since, until now each one resembles an afghan.

Will he give them up? He will not.

There is something feline about a man's love for old, familiar things. I
know that it is a popular misconception to compare women with cats and
men with dogs. But the analogy is clearly the other way.

Just run over the cat's predominant characteristic and check them off:
The cat is a night wanderer. The cat loves familiar places, and the
hearthside. (And, oddly enough, the cat's love of the hearthside doesn't
interfere with his night wanderings!) The cat can hide under the suavest
exterior in the world principles that would make a kitten blush if it
had any place for a blush. The cat is