That was all—no "Thank you" or "Much obliged" or any other of the ready phrases of casual courtesy. Just, "I don't care to sit down."
It was an unfortunate and deucedly embarrassing experience. We didn't like to sit down again—in our confusion we would probably have sat in someone else's lap. And yet it seemed frightfully silly for the two of us to go on standing there in front of that empty seat. So we stopped the car and got off half a mile from home.
Now, why did she do that? Was she afraid that if she sat down and said, "Thank you," we might presume on her graciousness to make a few timely remarks about the weather, and after a brief survey of the Russian situation or the newest thing in "movies," should end up by offering her some gum? Or, on the other hand was she a suffragette who refused to be put on a basis of inequality and treated as a member of a weaker sex? Did she see in our action the gloating superiority of man the master?
Then again she may have been unwilling to sit down because—well, because—oh, dash it all, you know how tight those skirts are! Besides, occasionally in shop-windows and while hurrying modestly past certain "circles" in department-stores, we have inadvertently seen articles of feminine attire (warranted pure whalebone) which would seem to make the operation of sitting down a difficult and painful feat of compression. We feel a certain delicacy in mentioning this, and not for worlds would we dream of using the language in which these garments are described in the newspaper ads—the accompanying photographs almost make it impossible for us to read them. But the fact remains that the statuesque young lady in the car may not have been able to bend any more than her neck, which was quite bare and untrammelled halfway down the lungs.
Of course, Lord Chesterfield and all the books of etiquette since his time have been strong for self-possession. A man, they say, should be self-possessed under any and every circumstance—the more surprising and unpleasant they are, the more self-possessed he should be. It is the secret of good manners.
Now that is just the sort of excellent and utterly futile advice that we are always getting. Be self-possessed—sure! But how? That's what we want—specific directions, not general advice. We would welcome a few concrete illustrations for maintaining one's self-possession when meeting one's recently divorced wife, for instance, or after dropping a soda-check in the collection plate, or while mother is showing pictures of one as a baby, or while purchasing long silk hose and explaining that auntie is having a birthday. Situations such as these are apt to occur in the most skilfully regulated lives, and naturally we would like to know what to do—meaning, what to do with our hands and the perspiration on our brow and the blushes on our face.
Just as a case in point—we went into a department-store some months back to buy a thimble. We do a little sewing now and then, you know—nothing fancy, just buttons and repairs of a temporary and intimate nature. It occurred to us that we ought to have a thimble. A bed-post is all right, if it is handy. But you are not always near enough to be able to shove the needle against it; and naturally one can't very well carry a bed-post around with one, can one?
So we decided to buy a thimble and went into a department-store for the purpose, having previously steeled our breast and made brazen our countenance. But we didn't have the courage to ask anyone, least of all a floor-walker, where the things were sold. For fifteen minutes we wandered about peering at the various "circles," and rousing the worst suspicions of the shop-detectives. There were at least two men shadowing us by the time we finally saw a tray of thimbles and rushed at it with a gasp of relief.
Our relief, however, was premature. There was a girl standing back of the tray—not the usual beauty in a lace blouse, who toys with her back-hair and stares through a man with devastating indifference. We were prepared for that sort, and had several curt and peremptory things ready to say. But this was a nice, motherly girl, the kind of girl who makes a man feel that he is just seven years old and is about to have his face washed. These are overwhelming!
"A thimble?—you want a thimble?" she asked with an air of bustling solicitude. "What size? But, of course, a man never does know the size. Let me see your finger."