realization 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.