Call a man a dog and he'll fight. Call a woman a cat and she'll scratch your eyes.
But speak of a guy as a wolf, a most loathsome, cowardly animal, and he'll be pleased as all get out.
Of course, no man openly admits he's a wolf. He smirks and smiles and blushes and tries to giggle it off. But he sure is proud.
The dictionary defines "wolf" as a fierce, rapacious, destructive beast—or person. None of that fits the New York canis lupus.
He is not fierce; he traps his prey with gentle wiles. He is not rapacious, being satisfied with one at a time. (But every day is a different time.) And he is not so destructive.
The subject of wolves has been written about ad nauseam, and to most people it's an old and tedious joke. Yet, nowhere in the world save possibly Hollywood, are male wolves so much a part of the scene as in afterdark New York.
Here, wolfing has developed into an art, and though grandma's girl, after she's been around any time at all, spots the species immediately, tradition demands that she permit him to pursue and subdue her, wolf-fashion, and never let on she's wise to his act. Wolves are very sensitive.
Though there are more femmes in Gotham than in any other city on earth, it takes much ingenuity to stalk the Little Red Riding Hood here. There are no forest paths. It's the best-lighted place on earth—when John L. Lewis keeps his hands off. It is against the law to flirt on the streets of New York. He who would try it in public places, such as theatres or the subway, will get a punch in the nose if he doesn't land in the hoose-gow.
There are so many wolves in Manhattan that, even if the entire female population of Scranton, with Reading and Mauch Chunk thrown in, were transplanted here, they wouldn't cross the path of 1 per cent of our predatory males.