around the waist line, but when I consider the long days of womanhood
stretched out before me in the future I will admit it is with a
sinking not only of the waist, but also of the heart.

More indignities have been heaped upon me. Why did I ever take up the
profession of a show girl? To-day I fell into the clutches of the
barbers. They were not gentle clutches, brutal rather; and such an
outspoken lot they were at that.

"What's that?" asked one of them as I stood rather nervously before
him with bared chest.

"Why, that," I replied, a trifle disconcerted, "that's my chest."

He looked at me for a moment, then smiled a slow, pitying smile. "Hey,
Tony," he suddenly called to his colleague, "come over here a moment
and see what this bird claims to be a chest."

All this yelled in the faces of the entire Biff-Bang company. It was
more inhuman and debasing than my first physical examination in
public. The doctors on this occasion, although they had not
complimented me, had at least been comparatively impersonal in
despatching their offices, but these men were far from being
impersonal. I perceived with horror that it was their intention to use
my chest as a means of bringing humor into their drab existences. Tony
came and surveyed me critically.

"That," he drawled musically, "ees not a chest. That ees the bottom
part of hees neck."

"I know it is," replied the other, "but somehow his arms have gotten
mixed up in the middle of it."

Tony shrugged his shoulders eloquently. He assumed the appearance of a
man completely baffled.

"Honestly, now, young feller," continued my first tormentor, "are you
serious when you try to tell us that that is your chest?"

He drew attention to the highly disputed territory by poking me

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