Chapter II: Part 2

A bore of tremendous calibre is the plutocratic person who enjoys what psychologists call “acute caste-consciousness.” Take Mrs. Eric Appledorn, for instance, who is the lady shown above with a map of the Amazon River appliquéd on her façade. Can’t you imagine how it bores Dorothy Dobbee, whose nearest approach to car-ownership is a pair of yellow goggles, to be told of the six Rolls-Royces which Mrs. Appledorn has bought for her children?

THE DIETETIC BORE

If I were little Ouija, I should certainly tip the table over on that insufferable blighter who, at every meal, demands a special menu of gluten bread, goldfish wafers, and prunes. “Nothing acid!” he cried; “Nothing starchy! Nothing albuminous! No sugar! Have you saccharine?” Geska, the maid, has no idea what saccharine is, but she is willing to try ground glass on this creature--at a venture.

THE THEATRE BORE

To end a day of perfect boredom, it is only necessary to go to the theatre with a person who has seen the play before and tells the plot to all those within earshot. At the big moment, pictured at the right, he has just crashed into the silence by assuring the Wilberforce girls that Vera, the heroine, isn’t really killed at all. “Just wait until the next act,” he says cheeringly, “she shoots _him_ then.”

THE AWAKENING TO SPRING

If you are at all interested in tracing the love interest back to its very beginnings, all you have to do is to visit the nearest park, any bright Spring morning. Little scenes like this are going on all over the place; any member of the younger set, between the ages of two and five, can give you all the information you may require on just how wonderful nature really is. There is only one difference between love and any other contagious disease: once you have had the other disease, you are immune from a second attack.

HAIL, THE CONQUERING HERO!

When first love takes the form of hero worship, there is practically nothing that can be done about it. The case illustrated below is almost at the last stage, as is shown by the patient’s complete loss of appetite. The object of her maiden dreams is her mother’s guest, a returned big-game hunter--one of those bronze-skinned, clean-limbed outdoor men. Really, these people with clean limbs and chiseled features ought not to be at large; they get a young girl’s innocent inhibitions and major complexes all tangled up.

THE PROFESSIONAL SIREN

Don’t dwell too long on the picture above, gentle reader; if you have any heart at all, you will just break down and have a good hard cry. This is one of the bitterest phases of first love--the case of the adolescent moth and the professional flame. The youth is at that tender age where he classes all women under thirty-five as crude, and all unmarried women as uninteresting. The lady in the case is just about old enough to be a nice, understanding great-aunt. She is graciously allowing the youth to pour out his heart to her in a series of home-made sonnets,--after all, his little stunt helps to pass away the time until her next dance.

The Throes of First Love, in Society

_A Few Fashionable Little Variations on the Oldest Theme in the World_

LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT

The great romantic tragedies are no more tragic than an affair like this; for sheer bitterness, the epic of little Gladys and her adored Unknown makes “Romeo and Juliet” look like a bedroom farce. While walking in the park with her nurse, little Gladys, up to that moment but a headless slip of a girl, comes face to face with her fate--her Soul-Mate, her Ineffable One, her Man. It is love at first sight; but the anguished lovers are torn asunder almost immediately. The cruel nurse drags the stricken heroine home to her nap, while the Unknown’s father insists that he must deport himself like a little Man.

THE DANGEROUS DÉBUTANTE

And now we must witness the futile yearnings of the youth who has fallen in love with the most popular débutante of the season. He is virtually in a state of shell-shock. The thing has hit him so hard that all power of speech has completely left him. It is seldom that love affects anyone this way, in later life. You just take these little things as all in the day’s work, after you’ve had a few years’ experience with them.

FIRST LOVE--AND THE NOBLE THEATRICAL GOD

Here is an experience that comes but eight or ten times to a young girl--her worship of the dramatic hero. There are few purer forms of love than these idylls, and few more lucrative emotions--from the box-office standpoint. The youthful worshippers, chastely chaperoned by a vestal, attend every matinée, to bask in the glances of their idol. All their childish pennies are scraped together to buy the front row seats. It’s just the old, old story--it’s the woman that pays, and pays, and pays.

GARDENING

Gardening is always an extremely popular sport,--some people do so love to get close to nature. Of course, there are many who won’t have anything to do with this sport; they remember that all the trouble in the world started in a garden. It is not at all difficult to become a highly accomplished gardener. All it requires is a study of that invaluable text-book “How to Know What Makes the Wild Flowers Wild.”

A Calendar of Popular Outdoor Sports

_As Practised Among Persons of Breeding and Quality_

LAWN TENNIS

Lawn tennis is one of those sports that are very popular among the onlookers. Ladies who can’t tell a tennis racket from any other noise, and gentlemen who never have been able to understand why the players stand on different sides of the net, are most enthusiastic tennis spectators, never missing any of the big matches. Oh, well, history has proved that there always has been a certain deadly fascination in watching one’s fellow creatures suffer needlessly.

INDOOR GOLF

Golf, that greatest of all reasons why men leave home, has become a delightful indoor sport. All butlers count as hazards, and footmen may not be removed from the course. Mr. Reginald Vere de Vere, one of our best known after-dinner golfers, is here portrayed demonstrating that fine shot he nearly made on the eleventh hole.

SUMMER BOATING

Are you one of those who have always believed that a punt is the lowest form of wit? If you are, you must change your views, for punting is bound to happen at all the smartest wet places. All our dowagers and dancing men are delighted with the sport. It’s so pleasant to fish from a punt,--some people do so love to angle for anything that seems to be in the social swim.

CROQUET

The clergy is going in for croquet more strenuously than ever before. It is indeed splendid exercise; there is no better way of developing the vocabulary. The reverend gentleman on the right really should not hit his adversary over the head with his mallet. He should know that whoever hits his opponent with a mallet loses his next turn. The correct thing to do is to hit him with one of the stakes.

The Seven Deadly Temperaments

_As Frequently Met With in the Ladies_

THE FELINE TEMPERAMENT

Four members of the feline, velvet-pawed, low-springing, meat-eating, Cat family, shown in the act of trepanning little Angela, the sweet, blonde, yielding, and wholly worshipful being who is seated on the sofa before you. There is not one single nasty thing that the felines have forgotten to say about Angela, a girl who never did a wrong thing--except that she allowed Destiny to make her attractive to married men.

THE MATERNAL TEMPERAMENT

Here we see the ideal mother, the chatelaine type, a type upon which so many poets, novelists, and music hall singers have dilated. The future of the race is hers. It is a trifle hard to tell--whether she is a futurist sofa pillow or a marble parquet floor. This type of lady is always irresistible to the clergy, especially when they are of the Protestant persuasion. As will be observed, upon a closer scrutiny of the lady and her biological factor--the union has been fruitful.

THE SOULFUL TEMPERAMENT

Always devoted to calla lilies, rhythmic (or self-expression) dancing, and loose-fitting Greek robes. She usually displays an abnormal interest in what’s what on the buffet. Leave this type of girl alone with a tableful of truffles, pâtés, mushrooms, macaroons, queen olives, peaches, and chocolate éclairs, and the place, after a bit, will look like Bapaume, after the German evacuation.

THE NAGGING TEMPERAMENT

You know the kind. She simply won’t let you alone. Picking on you, all day long. She starts right in on you at breakfast, along with the coffee and the toast. She always gets up early and comes down all dressed and ready for a good day’s nagging. There is no known form of temperament so horrible, so poisonous, so soul-blighting--and so certain to marry. Oh, wives and mothers, what a lesson this picture should be to you.

THE ROMANTIC TEMPERAMENT

Cupid just leads her around from one dark corner to another and from one brave man to another. She lives exclusively upon little pencilled notes, chocolate bon bons, pressed violets, Percy Shelley, moonlight, and the strains of the guitar. Dangerous to a man in his first season. Equally dangerous to a man in the bald-headed fifties, but particularly dangerous to a man who is tottering on the brink of the grave.

THE PRACTICAL TEMPERAMENT

A frequent and highly commendable type of womanhood. She always knows exactly what she wants--which is usually something under the classification of Jewels. Furthermore, she knows how to get it, and she knows where to go for it. In short, she is a ferret.

THE ARTISTIC TEMPERAMENT

Last, but most frequently met with of all, we behold the artistic temperament. By that we mean the lady who _feels_ things so keenly, suffers so acutely, and kicks so ferociously, that we know instinctively, on observing her, that she is passionately devoted to ART. Have you noticed that they always wear clinging robes and are very rude to their maids?

Six Brands of Week-End Hostesses

_It’s a Lusty Life, if You Don’t Week-End_

THE UNSEEN HOSTESS

The self effacing hostess is a very popular brand. If it weren’t for her week-end parties, society never could catch up with its correspondence. She isn’t in the least entertaining--and she mercifully doesn’t try to be. She thoughtfully effaces herself, and leaves you in your room after supplying each guest with crested paper, assorted pens, and unused stamps. Spending a week-end at her house is much the same thing as spending it in the writing room of the Ritz.

THE BISHOP’S MOVE

The absent-minded hostess has ruined many a promising young week-end by her unfortunate affliction. She can never quite remember just what people she has asked for the week-end and she _will_ go and ask a bishop, at the last moment. Of course, bishops are a splendid institution and you really couldn’t want anything nicer around a cathedral, but, at a week-end party, when all the tired guests are having their relaxation, a bishop is about as welcome as an outbreak of beri-beri.

THE MUSICAL HOSTESS

The hostess who is _so_ musical is one of those blessings that we could all get along without. She is always exploring among the fauna of Bohemia and capturing some particularly wild specimen. Her guests spend the week-end, like Daniel, in a lion’s den. There is no let-up to the atrocities. The guests sit in horror, thinking of the things they might be doing in the city, while a hairy conscientious objector does unmentionable things to a piano.

THE WELL MEANING HOSTESS

The well-meaning hostess is one of the lowest forms. She insists upon everybody’s getting together and having a jolly time. She can’t call it a week-end till each of her guests has committed at least one parlor trick. She is here portrayed in her favorite pursuit of dragging an inoffensive guest to the piano, insisting that she just _knows_ he sings. People spend exactly one week-end at her place; after that, “Very important business keeps me away. So sorry.”

THE VANISHING HOSTESS

The perfect, or disappearing, hostess is rare. She always invites the One Person you want to spend the week-end with, and then lets nature take its course. She has a perfectly bearable house surrounded by really wonderful grounds. This hostess appears occasionally at dinner, but at all other times she vanishes completely, leaving things to the careful supervision of the faithful family gardener, who has probably seen more biological history in the making than any man in the county.

PALM SUNDAY

The gilded hostess has one of those rustic cottages, where her guests rough it over Sunday surrounded by vintage champagne, Swiss butlers, liveried footmen. The sketch--from life--shows a guest’s retreat to the city, after a week-end’s bridge; note how effectively the footmen decorate the sketch with palms.

After-the-War Servant Problems

_How the Great Conflict ended the Golden Days of Service in the Houses of the Elect_

GILDING THE LILY

In the good old ante-bellum days, scenes like this were every-day occurrences in the life of Mr. J. Wallingford Smith,--inventor and sole owner of Smith’s Slenderizing Stays--They Lace on the Side. Mr. Smith simply could not call it a day unless at least five male menials were involved in the process of getting him dressed. All his puttings on and takings off were personally attended to by these motherly creatures. And then, just as everything was going nicely, the world had to get mixed up in that dreadful war, so that poor Mr. Smith now has to adjust his jewelry without a corps of specially trained liveried attendants.

TWEEDLEDUM AND TWEEDLEDEE

Portrait impression--from memory--of Mr. and Mrs. J. Wallingford Smith, motoring in their third-best Rolls-Royce, just about two weeks before the Kaiser turned on the war. Note the attendant chauffeur and footman--Mr. and Mrs. Smith wouldn’t dream of going out without two men on the box. But things aren’t what they used to be. The chauffeur and footman now own their own motors--after two years in the provision business.

WHY BOYS LEAVE HOME

This scene, almost too terrible to look upon, is absolutely true--it’s not one of those faked war pictures at all. It reveals the hideous, dreadful privations, that the war brought upon some of us. It shows the bitter anguish of the J. Wallingford Smiths as they watched a battalion of their footmen, chauffeurs, butlers, valets gardeners, coachmen, grooms, house detectives, and resident photographers departing for the Saar Valley. How silent and lonely the house has seemed, the past year, without these brave youths!

TIGER! TIGER!

Conscription was the mother of invention--Mrs. Smith recently conceived the brilliant idea of engaging a mere stripling to understudy for the footman who was removed by the war. Someone simply has to carry the family ermines around--you can’t expect a lone lady to do it all by herself. The accompanying picture graphically portrays the new footman in action--playing the part of a movable human coat-room.

THE ULTIMATE STRAW

And now, even Mrs. Smith’s maid has gone and done it--she decided to remain permanently in the Woman’s Motor Corps. The uniform is so much more becoming than those trying maid’s costumes. She is pictured with her latest and very best Young Man.

CASUALS OF THE AVENUE

Fate seems to be against the unhappy Smiths--it’s not even on speaking terms with them. Even that good idea of Mrs. Smith’s about engaging a child footman didn’t work out. The boy wonder was really too immature--he couldn’t overhear even the simplest stories without blushing--so Mrs. Smith had to resort to a maid to accompany her around the city. But, judging from her expression, she is a trifle dismayed by the number and ardor of Mrs. Smith’s casual acquaintances.

Advice to the Lovelorn

_What Every Girl Should Know, Before Choosing a Husband_

LE PREMIER PAS

The love interest really must come into the life of every young girl. There’s no use talking, she simply can’t get along without it. Her mother may weep, and her father may become dramatic about it, but a girl should remember in choosing a husband, that it’s the first step that counts in matrimony. After a girl has once been married, a second, third or even a fourth husband are simple matters. It’s the first one that’s tricky. Getting a husband is rather like getting the olives out of a bottle--after you get the first one, the rest come easily.

BEWARE THE SOCIETY FAVORITE

Every girl is likely to be dazzled by the radiance of the Social Light. He shines in ball-rooms, and in the frontline trenches of tea-fights; he fox-trots with passionate abandon, he is the life and soul of every dinner party, but, around the house he is, unfortunately, something else again. The trouble with these Social Lights is that they simply can’t live without a group of admiring females about them.

BEWARE THE MODERNIST POET

There is a time in every girl’s life--usually around Spring--when she falls in love with the Professional Poet. He wears his hair in the manner made popular by Irene Castle, and he believes in free speech, and free verse, and free love, and free everything. His favorite game is reading from his own works--such selections as his “Lines to an Un-moral Tulip.” This type of poet does not go in very strongly for marriage--it cramps his style--with the other ladies.

WITH THIS RING

There is unquestionably much to be said on the side of the Munitions Millionaire, as a husband. The course of true love certainly does run much more smoothly if it’s travelled in a Rolls-Royce. Such trifles as diamond tiaras, Russian sables, chintz-lined limousines, and ropes of pearls help Love’s young dream along considerably. The only trouble with a Munitions Millionaire is that his neck is a little too much inclined to bulge over the back of his collar.

THE FUTURIST--WITH A PAST

Then there is the Futurist Artist. He is really a great factor in a girl’s education: he can show her how, at a glance, to tell the difference between a Matisse painting and a Spanish omelette, and he knows just what the vorticists are trying to prove. He dresses like the property artist in musical comedies and he is simply ripping at designing costumes--he tells you how Lucile is battling to engage him if he would only descend to commercialism. Avoid them, girls, avoid them! They always have a past!

THE RIGHT MAN--AT LAST

But, after all, there’s no use in advising a girl what to do and what not to do, in choosing a husband. The safest way is just to let Nature take its course. She needn’t worry about the thing at all,--she is sure to know the Leading Man, the moment he makes his entrance. He doesn’t even have to be near her--if she just knows he’s back from patrol duty in a distant land, and on the telephone, the cosmic urge will make her break all existing running broad jump records, in order to get to the telephone.

HERE ARE YOUR JEWELS

It’s getting so that the members of the widely advertised working classes get up in the morning, look out of the window, and say, “This looks like a nice, warm day--let’s strike for something.” This little habit of going on strike is like the cosmic urge, or the wanderlust, or the young man’s fancy, or any of those things; it gets under way at any time of year, and there’s simply no stopping it. Here is a harrowing scene, one of the fearful tragedies incident to the strike of the nursemaids. The nurse, just called out by her union, is returning her charges to mother, a lady with whom they have but the merest bowing acquaintance, thus utterly spoiling the lady’s afternoon.

The Open Season for Strikes

_If You Don’t See What You Want, Strike for It_

THE HUSBANDS’ REVOLT

It’s only a question of time before the down-trodden husbands form a union and strike for freedom. They have come to realize that bitter truth of married life--it’s always the man who pays, and pays, and pays. Street-cleaners, ship-builders, riveters, gasfitters, and all other laborers claim the right to a forty-four hour week and every evening and Sunday off, with no questions asked--why not husbands? Here is one of the agitators of the Industrial Husbands of the World, shown in the act of uprising.

WHAT ARE THE WILD WAVES SAYING?

Even the hairdressers are getting into the spirit of the times, and pledging themselves to strike while the curling-iron is hot. They have found that there is really very little in this silly idea of a life on a Marcel wave. Observe this terrible catastrophe--the striker is throwing down his badge of labor and going out, leaving his unfortunate client with half her hair as art intended it to be, and half of it in the unfinished state in which nature left it.

THE WIVES’ UNION

A strike of wives may be called at any time; many wives have been threatening to walk out for months. The thing is likely to prove rather embarrassing. Here, for instance, is the case of a member of the wives’ union, whose husband has just returned from five years’ service in the East. In the midst of her enthusiastic welcome, she has been called out by three quite unfeeling delegates of her union.

THE WAYS OF A MAID

The maids are at last coming around to the modern way of thinking--that in unions there is strength. Here is an intimate glimpse of what will happen if they ever start striking. The maid is obeying the first law of all agitators,---be sure to strike at the most inconvenient time. She is leaving her employer, so to speak, sunk--just on the point of throwing up the sponge and going down for the third and last time.

THE ULTIMATE HORROR

There are many terrible things in this world, as someone has so cleverly said, but the worst of all would be a strike of footmen. Why, all social life would be completely paralyzed by it. Just see what a cruel thing it would be. The footmen in this case are striking for shorter hours, higher wages, and looser liveries; they have walked out in the middle of the caviarre, leaving the guests face to face with starvation--and, what is worse, face to face with each other.

THE PORTRAITS OF OLD

Having your portrait painted, in the good old days, used to be a comparatively simple matter. It was as much a part of a woman’s social duties as going to the opera, or having her hair marcelled. All you needed was a black evening gown, a lap-dog, a cheque for $10,000, and an appointment at the studio of Mr. John Sargent.

The Art of Fashionable Portraiture

_You Can’t Quite Be “It,” Without the Aid of a Modernist Artist_

GO TO THE AUNT

It used to be considered awfully radical and just the least bit Bohemian, to have your portrait done by a bearded foreigner like Monsieur Chartran,--local talent was simply nowhere. It was always obligatory, while posing for the portrait, to bring along a trained aunt, to keep off draughts and gentlemen callers. When the canvas was done, you could almost always tell, in six guesses, who the portrait was intended to be.

THE OVAL-SHAPED LADY

But having one’s portrait merely _painted_ isn’t being done any more. The thing to do now is to lease a sculptor, and have him do a simple little portrait in marble, and call it “Mrs. ...--a Mood.” Prospective sitters for modernist busts should remember never to show surprise at the finished product. Never behave like the lady in the sketch; remember that only novices faint on seeing the completed masterpiece. The thing to do is to clasp the hands, gaze yearningly at the ceiling and murmur in passionate undertones, “It is wonderful--but wonderful! The feeling, the soul, the ego--how could you know?”

THE HUMAN EGG

If you want to go that far, you can have your portrait done by one of the cubist sculptors, who are causing such a furor--among themselves. Just ask the first sculptor you meet at dinner if he won’t do a bust of you; he is sure to be a cubist. He will only be too glad to oblige with a charming trifle, looking rather like an egg after a hard Easter, and to name it “Arrangement: Mrs. B.”

THE NUDE SOUL

But the sculpture of the young Roumanian refugee artiste, now so plentifully in our midst, is the very farthest one can get in modern portraiture. The gifted sculptress specializes in soul portraits. Naturally, every woman loves to have a little statue of her soul, somewhere around the house. The completed statue, always in the nude, bears the title “My Soul, in Passing: Nocturne.”

In case you haven’t decided just which school you want to employ in creating your portrait, here is a cross-section of our artistic Bohemia. It is a most representative group of sculptors at their recent notable dinner. The noble spirit, at the extreme right is Henri Pryzmytioff, the Post-Futurist Sculptor delivering a long and most impassioned talk on “The Sculpture of Day After To-morrow--and Why.”

Social Superstitions

_With Very Special Obeisances to Cupid_

THE SHEEP--AND THE GOAT

Everyone has a pet superstition, and pretty Madeleine Templeton’s is that if a girl sleeps on her love-letters she is sure to dream of him who is to be her true, true love. Unfortunately, Madeleine has so many tender missives from so many true loves that she is positively uncomfortable and can not sleep at all. She has tried counting her fingers, counting her sheep and counting her admirers, but all is in vain. She is now desperately wondering if she ought to try the modern society method of marrying her true loves, one by one, until the right husband finally turns up.

THE SUIT AND THE SUITOR

Helen de Peyster’s favorite fear complex is the fatal number Thirteen! And yet, what is she to do when, having rejected a dozen proposals, along comes handsome Harry Radcliffe, with wealth, position and a personality that causes her heart to miss like a faulty motor. And now the Fates have spoken, indicating plainly that hearts are trumps and that she should undoubtedly follow her partner’s lead. “Am I doomed?” asks Helen, “Simply because Harry is the thirteenth man to propose to me? That’s what I want to know--am I doomed?”

SALT AND BATTERY

Because Clarice Vanderhoff almost fainted when her fiancé, Teddy Ashhurst, spilled the salt, Ted naturally placated the Unknown Gods by throwing a handful of the offending seasoning over his left shoulder with his right hand. This is undoubtedly very pleasing to the Fates and Goddesses of Chance, but hardly as agreeable to the charming Mrs. Drexel-Drexel who, quite naturally, objects to being salted, like an almond--particularly in public.

THE WORST IS YET TO COME

It is an established fact, in the mind of Annabelle Armitage, who is shown on our left, that she will wed the first man who meets her gaze on St. Valentine’s morn. She has not yet looked down, nor has Tony Galati, who does the Armitage roses, looked up, but Fate is plainly staging another of those elopements in high society with a stirring last act in which the pleasant news is broken to the present Signora Galati, in Calabria, and the seven little Galatis.

THE CROIX DE COUTEAUX

It is certainly hard on a hostess to have her dinner party spoiled by a social contretemps, yet that is what happened at Mrs. Aspinwall’s when her imported and important authoress, Patience Bitgood, fainted dead away in mid-sweetbread, at the sight of crossed knives beside her plate. This is one of the worst omens of a relentless Nemesis, and foretells a solid year of hard luck.

DANGEROUS DIANA

The new moon is a lovely sight, but, of course, it is absolutely fatal to look at it through glass, a fact well known by Eric Appledorn, who, we may say, is not as simple as he looks. “Come into the garden, Maud,” he murmurs, “and let us go out through the dining room so that we may be sure to gaze on Luna over your lovely right shoulder!” Something in Maud’s eyes tells us that she will follow the red line of romance to its usual and pleasant destination.

Who’s Who--in the Audience

_Showing That the Smart Playgoer, Not the Smart Play, Is Really the Thing_

IT’S ALL IN THE LINES

Musical comedy audiences are always notable for the rapt attention they pay to the evening’s entertainment. The male students of the drama, in particular, seem to be ever on the lookout for good lines--especially those of the ladies of the chorus. Above is shown a loge-ful at that standing-room-only success, “The Girl on the Nightboat.”

CINEMA LOVERS

This is a scene from that realm of outer darkness--the moving picture theatre. The audiences are the thing that make moving pictures move. Observe how intent they are upon the thrilling scenes reeling out before their very eyes. The stirring picture now on the screen shows the inhabitants of Nova Scotia tinning salmon. Only two people--in the back row--fail to register interest in the scenes before them,--those two are, nevertheless, true devotees of the cinema theatres.

CAN YOU GUESS WHO’S ON THE STAGE?

You can always tell, by looking at the audience, just who is holding the center of the stage. When the masculine half of the audience occupies itself in reading the corset advertisements in the programmes or in looking restlessly about while the feminine half strains to catch every word--then you can be sure that the marcelled hero, in the jet-buttoned evening clothes, with the velvet collar, is standing in the spotlight and singing, or talking, rhapsodically about the age-old passion of LOVE.

DOUBLE ENTENDRES

The war was really responsible for a great many unfortunate occurrences, as so many observant people have already pointed out. Here, for instance, is the case of two returned Lieutenants who, in their year’s stay in Germany, have managed to pick up a good working knowledge of the French language. By way of celebrating their home-coming, they have been invited to see the latest imported French farce--and find that they can understand every word of it. In the future, they will only patronize domestic products.

FOR THE CHILDREN’S SAKE

This is one of those delightful little occasions where the children are given their annual holiday treat. All their existing ancestors, in a body, take them to the Hippodrome. For weeks before the eventful evening, their parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles go about suffering intensely saying what a fearful bore it is going to be and how they dread it, but they really must go through with it--it means so much to the kiddies. Here is the party, shown in action,--observe the deadly boredom of the grown people and the hysterical hilarity of the little guests of honor.

CAN YOU GUESS WHO’S ON THE STAGE, NOW?

As we explained just a few minutes ago, a glance at the audience will show you what’s going on, on the stage. When the ladies are reading the notes in the programme, or in studying the components of the complexion of the woman in the stage box, while the attention of the gentlemen is riveted on the stage--then you know that the chorus girls have undulated on.

SPEEDING THE PARTING GUESTS

Of course, you were thrilled when they--your week-end guests--accepted your invitation; and you were tremendously glad to see them when they arrived; and you enjoyed every minute of their stay,--but, oh, Lady, Lady,--wasn’t the most exquisite moment of all that when you and your consort waved a fond farewell to them and the back axle of their Rolls-Royce? Week-ends are wonderful, but, wasn’t Tennyson clever when he said that parting is _such_ sweet sorrow!

The Horrors of the Week End

_From the Tortured Hostess’s Point of View_

WHY DINNER WAS LATE

The chief horror of every week-end is the lady guest who comes without a maid, borrows the hostess’s, monopolizes her wholly and leaves the hostess marooned in her boudoir, unnerved, unnoticed, and unhooked. This migratory blight always wears a gown out of which she can only escape with the aid of Harry Houdini. In the meantime, below stairs, the pommes-soufflés have collapsed and--which is a great deal more important--the cook is getting ready to do likewise.

VISITORS-IN-LAW

There is something about family relationships that always wrecks the entente-cordiale which should exist between guest and host. For instance, there is your wife’s brother, who, warmed by heavy inroads on your vintage Scotch, invariably tells you how little he thought of you when he first met you, and how broken up his family were over the wedding. Only the sacred rites of hospitality stand between this repulsive and misguided being and the honors of a sudden death.

THE LADY BURGLAR

The statement that “old friends are best” was never made by a lady who has endured the highwayman methods adopted by her old school-chum, or knew-you-as-a-child type of visitor. Reverting to habits, this little house-breaker rifles her hostess’s bureau and chiffonier with the avowed intention of wearing each garment which the hostess has not had the foresight to put on.

THE HOOT-OWL

In this picture, we have a fiendish friend who, after boring you all day with his silence and devastating dullness, suddenly wakes up, about 11.30 P.M., and begins to tell you about his salmon-fishing trip. After the details of what his camp outfit consisted of, we see him, as the clock strikes two, beginning to play his second salmon, and still going fairly strong.

RUDENESS REPAID

Have you ever lived, for a dozen odd years, next to some utterly impossible neighbors whom you have carefully snubbed, avoided and ignored only to have a well-meaning idiot, who happens to be your guest over Sunday, lead them joyously into your home with an air of triumphant discovery, as if he had done you the greatest sort of favour.

When Marriage Is a Failure--Cherchez la Femme

_Have You a Little Failure In Your Home?_

THE LAPLAND MODEL

Here we see a living embodiment of Model No. 2--the BIJOU DOLL. She is often a blonde, but always a deceiver. Despite persistent complaints--by husbands--against wives of this model, the demand for them continues to be brisk. She always has a serious grievance against Fate! Why is it that her husband is so _groundlessly_ jealous? Is it _her_ fault if his men friends pester her and bother the life out of her? Was it _her_ plan to share a chair with Mr. Reginald Stuart? And how absurd her husband is to carry on in that ridiculous way, just because, being tired, she had to sit _somewhere_, and, as there was nothing else to sit on, the thought suddenly flashed on her: Why not sit on Mr. Stuart?

A CATALOGUE OF WIVES

There are only six kinds of wives. They are all shown on these two pages, but only one of them can be--on a crossed heart--warmly recommended. Fortunately marriage--which is at best but a primitive substitute for friendship--is becoming less and less fashionable, so that every year fewer of our young society leaders are sacrificed on the wedding pyre. This is especially true among _clever_ people. And now, reader, here is our first exhibit in wives, a very terrible kind, to be sure. She is known as the DEVOTED wife. She loves--and watches out for--her husband, especially in the early morning hours. Note the restraint exercised by our artist in refusing to introduce a cuckoo clock, a device usually inevitable in pictures of this kind.

THE SECRET SOLVED

And here we see the only perfect wife, the model known as the “LET YOU ALONE.” She is positively the final word--the _dernier cri_--in wives. Have you ever tried one? No! Ah, then you can’t imagine what married happiness really is. She is guaranteed never to ask any of the four, fatal questions, namely: Why? Where? Who? and When? Hers is an incomparable model that robs marriage of many of its horrors. Give her a cigarette, a glass of chartreuse, on improving little French novel, a pet dog or two and she won’t ask for another thing during an entire afternoon--until the gentlemen callers begin to arrive. More and more sociologists are realizing that married life can be made one grand, sweet song, if the two combatants will only _let each other alone_.

THE SENSITIVE WIFE

This is the SENSITIVE wife. A familiar and, alas, incurable type. She always makes the mistake of marrying a Fiend Incarnate while still an Innocent and Trusting child. She then spends the remainder of her life in “telling all,” to a strictly limited circle of female friends. Yes, she has children, twin boys--for the Brute has left _nothing_ undone to spoil her life. (N.B. The little boys are shown, in décolleté at the lower left-hand corner). She is fond of “giving away” the fiend to her circle of devoted harpies, furies, and bloodhounds. The Brute does not understand her--and never has, since she was a little, sensitive, misunderstood girl. Her mother should have warned her! Told her what Life really was: explained the grim horror and hateful meaning of it all.

THE “DRESSY” WIFE

An inordinate reader of _Vogue_; spends her mornings at Lucile’s; Paris is her Heaven; would sell her child for a Callot lace teagown; has to be torn, nightly, from shop windows; wears openwork stockings for breakfast. Our artist shows her in one of her frequent _bruised_ moments. Her husband simply can’t understand how Poiret’s bill can be so much for a single week. But then he _never_ understands anything. He is just a business man. No heart! No soul! No inspired moments! She is married to a “ledger,” a man who is nothing but a glorified adding machine. Her “jailer” has, with the characteristic brutality of a Hun, just refused to sign a blank check which she has made payable to Lanvin. He is trying to squirm out of it by saying that he is overdrawn at the bank--which statement she has just branded as a wilful, malicious and palpable LIE. She knows what he is up to. He wants to HURT her!

THE HUMAN BANK ACCOUNT

And here is the last portrait in our gallery--the rich or MONEYED wife. We would like entirely to discontinue the manufacture of this model and substitute for it, on all future occasions, the old-fashioned, penniless, demure, rosy-cheeked, Oh Alfred, all-for-love, type of wife, but, alas, business is business, and rents, and club dues, and golf balls, and servants wages, are all going up, so why not recognize the fact that a rich wife is a good thing to _begin_ on; something to hang on to until you get up a little free action in the direction of True Love? The only trouble with marrying a rich wife is that, when you sign up for life, you are handed a leather leash along with the wedding certificate. Put a metal collar on your neck and a little red velvet blanket around your middle and you might just as well be Yami, or Sing Hi, or Chihuahua, the only three things in the world that your female meal-ticket really seems to love. Observe the prisoner’s heart-breaking, backward glance! The cry of anguish: the caged spirit, sending out an S.O.S. to two lovely nymphs.

Opening of the Opera Season

_The opera opened--to crowded boxes--with the usual performance of “Aïda.” Such of the fashionable people who came an act late, left an act early, slept during the second act, and talked in between times, passed an unusually pleasant evening._

THE POOR, INNOCENT VICTIM

What type of bridge player is the most spirit-blighting? Some favor the talking player; some the cheat--but we must vote, on every ballot, for the three girlies mirrored on this page. First, there is the creature shown above, who, after losing five rubbers, suddenly registers horror with the orbs, and exclaims in dismay: “Heavens! are we playing for _money_? I never dreamed of such a thing! I _never_ play for anything!” Note the indifference of the other participants--intensified by financial anguish.

Blighters at Bridge

_A Terrifying Triumvirate of Familiar Lady Auction Pests_

THE BLIGHTER, _PAR EXCELLENCE_

The supreme Blighter is undoubtedly that moon-faced Medusa who, after each and every hand, lays it out, and delivers herself of a lengthy post-mortem, the object of which is to prove that there must be something mentally wrong with her partner and that he ought to be put under observation, at once, by a first class alienist. She usually passes for a lady, so that violent reprisals, however desirable, are not always possible.

THE HOODOO-ED DOWAGER

Explain, if you can, why luck always seems to run the wrong way with Certain Sensitive Dowagers, just as the game is at its tensest? It does, you know,--with the result that the poor Persecuted One insists upon holding up the rubber while she does a majestic Marathon round and round her little gilt chair. Such childish overtures to Chance may be employed by ladies in many trifling matters, such as Love, Marriage, and Divorce, but, Georgiana, dear! try to remember, this is BRIDGE!

A Way to Succeed on the Stage

_A Lady, Once a Creature of Fashion, and Now a Famous Actress, Tells of Her Success_

CONSIDER YOUR AUDIENCE

“So many heartbroken girls have asked my advice on how to achieve an artistic destiny on the stage, that a frank word or two, on such a theme, may not be amiss. To begin with, girls should remember that the wishes and tastes of their audience have to be considered--before everything. An artistic standard that does not meet with popular approval must, of necessity, be a false standard to work by. Take my little bit, for instance, in the third act of ‘Houp-La.’ I tried to interest my audience in my wonderful imitations of the Allied statesmen. But, try as I would, I left them cold. Then, my manager, one of the best dramatic critics I have ever met, drew my attention to what he deemed a radical defect in my performance. The subjects of my imitations, he said, were all too _restful_! Not one of them was associated, in the public mind, with movement--especially with the movement which we know as Kicking. So I changed my repertoire to include impersonations of Nijinski, and Miassine, with the result that my act has been a veritable _riot_.

“So, remember, girls, consider your audience.”

REMEMBER YOUR MOTHER

“I want to insist upon the importance--in an artiste--of listening to the counsel of a good manager. Only last night, for instance, after the ring-down in my triumphal screen scene in ‘A Woman at Bay,’ (the one in which the screen, behind which I am dressing, is knocked over by the maid), my manager joined me, in the Ritz grill, and gave me the most wonderful advice in the world. He showed me how I could kill the star’s act by laughing in the middle of it; how I could steal the leading man’s entrance; how I could get the spot for a whole act--by giving the spotlight operator a Tecla pearl pin; how I could centre the publicity man’s interest in little me (merely by kindness) and how I could get my name up, in gas, merely by asking a dear friend of mine--(who is the President of a steel company) to invest some money in a musical comedy which my manager is going to put on. He has also given me advice about my dear mother. He thinks that the city air is disagreeing with her, and he suggests that, in the country, he could engage a single room for her--with the use of a bath--where she could pass the winter very comfortably. So there is _another_ thing to remember, girls: ‘Always be good to your mother!’”

TRY TO BE KIND TO THE CRITICS

“And now, girls, here is one more point. Remember that critics are Human. They never seem so, of course, when you read their stuff, but my experience has been that they are susceptible to little kindnesses. Martha, my maid,--she has been with me since I left the convent--always asks Izzy Stern--he is my personal press representative--to invite the critics back to my little dressing-room, after every first performance. I have a few bon-bons, or cigarettes, or new stories, or orchids there, which I distribute among them, along with a smile, a laughing word, and--on rare occasions--a little kiss, on the tips of their funny old noses. So, girls, there’s _another_ lesson! Always be kind to the critics.”

THE BEAUTY OF MODERATION

“And now, I have only one more word to say. Try always to be regular in your habits. Half of the failures on the stage--among feminine artistes, at least--are due to the fact that actresses do not observe a _regular_ mode of living. I have only one rule! Be Regular! For instance, I never dream of taking a pint of champagne for supper on Monday, and then three pints on Tuesday. No, I always take two pints every night in the week, including Sunday. I keep my cigarettes down, in the same way, to two boxes a day. One headache powder in the morning! One trional powder at night! One bouquet from each admirer, every evening. Never any more: never any less! So girls this is my parting word to you all: Be Moderate; be Regular; be Good. Moderation always pays--in the long run.”

Sports for the Summer

_The Increasingly Feminine Tone of Outdoor Diversions_

MOTORING

It has been a busy Summer for our lusty young athletes. Golf tournaments, tennis championships; polo, sparring, sea bathing, (see opposite page). Then there was also motoring, canoodling, dancing, and working at the office in order to pay income taxes. This picture shows the most dangerous of all the smart Summer sports--motoring. Indeed it may be said that a lad is never safe in a motor--when there is a lady about. Oh, and gentle Reader,--do you believe in signs?

CANOODLING

Canoeing is practically the safest of all our Summer sports. Safest because little _attachments_ are virtually impossible while indulging in it. A sentimental chap, when canoeing, may drown, to be sure, but he is safe from the menace of having a lady drape herself around his neck like a constrictor, an occurrence which is quite possible in motoring. When you propose in a canoe, don’t be afraid of shocking the silly birds--they are used to it.

SLAVING

What with the eighteen different kinds of taxes which the late Emperor William is causing us to pay into the Treasury, a chap had to slave away at the office last Summer, or else force his wife and children to go without the luxuries of life, that is, motor cars, sugar, diamonds, and eggs.

DANCING

Dancing, this past Summer, was just about as enlivening as taking a cup of camomile tea with two titled women in a cathedral close. This is a little scene at a fashionable house-party. Note that the only youthful cavalier in sight is just home from school, and has been dancing with Lady Muriel Pitt Powyss (his mother’s distinguished guest) until he is fed up with it to the point of the tonsils.

SEA BATHING HAS BECOME THE KING OF ALL THE DRY SPORTS

Fashionable Débutantes may sometimes safely sojourn by the sea, but it is a good rule never actually to immerse one’s body in the fluid.

The Strategy and Finesse of Proposing

_Advance Leaves from 1921 Handbook of Courtship_

THE PROPOSAL BY LETTER

A faint-hearted method--not at all recommended. Letters are all very well in their way, but, if a wooer wishes to get absolutely sure results, he ought, in person, to be on hand when the terrible moment arrives. Letters of proposal have any number of drawbacks. For instance: (1) They may miscarry and be delivered to the wrong candidate--some lady who leaves you cold. Or (2) the dear girl may accept you--by a somewhat precipitate telegram--before you have had time to think the thing over, in which case you will find yourself in the cart. (3) Letters sound so deucedly silly when the attorneys get up to read them in the courtroom for the benefit of the press. Finally (4), a letter never has the force of a good face-to-face recitation. The pen, though mighty, is hardly to be compared in efficacy with the three great aids to wooing: the capacious sofa, the soft-shaded lamp, and the smouldering fire. So, dismiss the page-boy and step around to Irene’s yourself.

THE PROPOSAL TERPSICHOREAN

There is only one certain way of making the modern débutante--like Muriel, for instance--capitulate, and that is to dance her into complete submission. Just accept every single engraved invitation that comes to you at your club--so long as it mentions dancing--and then go and dedicate yourself to the job of keeping Muriel turning. Remember, that, nowadays, hearts and thrones are oftenest won by revolutions. Remember that it is only in dancing, that a man inspires in a woman that close feeling of confidence so essential to bliss and felicity in the married state. So, if a maiden is even a little wary of your advances, or in any way disposed to fight you off, just get some willing friend to strafe the piano for you, then lift the diffident child out of her chair, give her position A, and launch out with her upon the whirlpools of the dance.

THE PROPOSAL, A LA PASHA

If you think it demeaning and ignoble to be loved for your pelf alone, try to remember that no girl accustomed to the sort of things which she is forever seeing advertised, is going to marry a man who never gives her anything but roses, and, here and there, a chocolate or two. In giving presents to the little dear, try always to stick to jewels. True love thrives best in a young lady’s bosom, on a diet of pearls, rubies, emeralds, sapphires and diamonds. Oh, and another thing! If she marries you, you have a half equity in the stones. If she _doesn’t_ marry you, you can force her mother to return them. Flowers fade! Bonbons vanish. But good diamonds _shine on forever_.

THE PROPOSAL BY TELEPHONE

In a great progressive city like ours, especially with stocks jumping up about five points a day--you can’t very well expect a chap to leave the stock-ticker in his club or in his café, trot up to the social zone and loaf round a girl’s house all day. And that merely to propose to her as soon as she has--at the end of an hour or so--consented to dress and give her hair and complexion the careful treatment which she always has to give them when she receives visitors. This is a very busy little world and a proposal over the wire often saves an immense amount of time--and sometimes two or three points margin at your brokers’. So, wherever she is, telephone! Don’t waste time. Call her up anywhere, even in her bedroom. This little sketch shows the delightfully intimate relationship which is sometimes established between the dining-room at a man’s Club and the bathing pavilion contiguous to a lady’s sleeping room. It was a scene such as this that inspired the composer who in a moment of supreme inspiration, wrote that lyrical gem entitled “Hullo, Central, Give Me Heaven.” In proposing by telephone, it is of course just as well to get the right girl on the wire. A friend of ours recently became a trifle confused--after being accepted by a female voice, to learn that the houri at the other end of the telephone was no less a dignitary than his lady-love’s maiden aunt.

THE PROPOSAL BY PHONOGRAPH

Our new, exclusive, patented, and correct model for diffident bachelors. No more plucking of marguerites (she loves me, she loves my car, etc.). No more tortured proposals on the knees (ruining the fit of the new trousers). If she accepts, she writes to you. If she refuses, she files the record along with her latest Hawaiian Aloha song. In buying your proposal records, insist on having the phonograph people insert your name and hers on the discs,--_without charge_. The names can be added in less than ten minutes’ time. If you are a busy man, you can of course order your records by the dozen--merely cautioning the makers to use the names of as many girls as you happen to be wooing at the time. You can then distribute the records to the girls and await developments. In case you should happen to receive two or more acceptances, the simplest method is to toss a coin.

LANDED AT LAST

The artist has mercifully drawn a veil over the hero in this scene. This is always the way you finish. You try out your proposals on different girls and find yourself landed at last with a big, masterful sort of sparring partner, a girl who grabbed you when you weren’t looking and marched you up the aisle with the Lohengrin record turned on at third speed. And, behind you and your big masterful girl, there stalks that dreadful mother of hers, and her soul-blighting Uncle Cyril, and her dreadful little twin brothers, and then--walking with a man whom you happen to hate--the bride’s sister Gertie, the bright little girl whom you _really meant to marry_.