the left hand side as a notice and to poke your untouched hand
right in without further orders, hoping to get it softened up
well so as to save her trouble in trimming it down to a size
which will suit her. But this is wrong--this is very wrong, as
she tells you promptly, with a pitying smile for your ignorance.
Manicure girls are as careful about boiling a hand as some
particular people are about bailing their eggs for breakfast of a
morning. A two minute hand is no pleasure to her absolutely if
she has diagnosed your hand as one calling for six minutes, or
vice versa. So, should you err in this regard she will snatch
the offending hand out and wipe it off and give it back to you
and tell you to keep it in a dry place until she calls for it.
Manicure girls are very funny that way.

Thus time passes on and on and by degrees you begin to feel more
and more at home. Your bashfulness is wearing off. The coherent
power of speech has returned to you and you have exchanged views
with her on the relative merits of the better known brands of
chewing gum and which kind holds the flavor longest, and you have
swapped ideas on the issue of whether ladies should or should not
smoke cigarettes in public and she knows how much your stick pin
cost you and you know what her favorite flower is. You are
getting along fine, when all of a sudden she dabs your nails with
a red paste and then snatches up a kind of a polishing tool and
ferociously rubs your fingers until they catch on fire. Just
when the conflagration threatens to become general she stops using
the polisher and proceeds to cool down the ruins by gently
burnishing your nails against the soft, pink palm of her hand. You
like this better than the other way. You could ignite yourself by
friction almost any time, if you got hold of the right kind of a