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PinkMonkey Digital Library-Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser


"Yes, that is a great resort for Chicago people. The hotels are
swell. You are not familiar with this part of the country, are you?"

"Oh, yes, I am," answered Carrie. "That is, I live at Columbia
City. I have never been through here, though."

"And so this is your first visit to Chicago," he observed.

All the time she was conscious of certain features out of the side
of her eye. Flush, colourful cheeks, a light moustache, a grey
fedora hat. She now turned and looked upon him in full, the
instincts of self-protection and coquetry mingling confusedly in
her brain.

"I didn’t say that," she said.

"Oh," he answered, in a very pleasing way and with an assumed
air of mis-take, "I thought you did."

Here was a type of the travelling canvasser for a manufacturing
house-a class which at that time was first being dubbed by the
slang of the day "drummers." He came within the meaning of a
still newer term, which had sprung into general use among
Americans in 1880, and which concisely expressed the thought of
one whose dress or manners are calculated to elicit the admiration
of susceptible young women-a "masher." His suit was of a striped
and crossed pattern of brown wool, new at that time, but since
become familiar as a business suit. The low crotch of the vest
revealed a stiff shirt bosom of white and pink stripes. From his
coat sleeves protruded a pair of linen cuffs of the same pattern,
fastened with large, gold plate buttons, set with the common
yellow agates known as "cat’seyes." His fingers bore several
rings-one, the ever-enduring heavy seal-and from his vest dangled
a neat gold watch chain, from which was suspended the secret
insignia of the Order of Elks. The whole suit was rather tight-
fitting, and was finished off with heavy-soled tan shoes, highly
polished, and the grey fedora hat. He was, for the order of intellect
represented, attractive, and whatever he had to recommend him,
you may be sure was not lost upon Carrie, in this, her first glance.

Lest this order of individual should permanently pass, let me put
down some of the most striking characteristics of his most
successful manner and method. Good clothes, of course, were the
first essential, the things without which he was nothing. A strong
physical nature, actuated by a keen desire for the feminine, was
the next. A mind free of any consideration of the problems or
forces of the world and actuated not by greed, but an insatiable
love of variable pleasure. His method was always simple. Its
principal element was daring, backed, of course, by an intense
desire and admiration for the sex. Let him meet with a young
woman once and he would approach her with an air of kindly
familiarity, not unmixed with pleading, which would result in
most cases in a tolerant acceptance. If she showed any tendency to
coquetry he would be apt to straighten her tie, or if she "took up"
with him at all, to call her by her first name. If he visited a
department store it was to lounge familiarly over the counter and
ask some leading questions. In more exclusive circles, on the train
or in waiting stations, he went slower. If some seem-ingly
vulnerable object appeared he was all attention-to pass the
compliments of the day, to lead the way to the parlor car, carrying
her grip, or, failing that, to take a seat next her with the hope of
being able to court her to her destination. Pillows,

books, a foot-stool, the shade lowered; all these figured in the
things which he could do. If, when she reached her destination, he
did not alight and attend her baggage for her, it was because, in
his own estimation, he had signally failed.

A woman should some day write the complete philosophy of
clothes. No matter how young, it is one of the things she wholly
comprehends. There is an indescribably faint line in the matter of
man’s apparel which somehow divides for her those who are
worth glancing at and those who are not. Once an individual has
passed this faint line on the way downward he will get no glance
from her. There is another line at which the dress of a man will
cause her to study her own. This line the individual at her elbow
now marked for Carrie. She became conscious of an inequality.
Her own plain blue dress, with its black cotton tape trimmings,
now seemed to her shabby. She felt the worn state of her shoes.

"Let’s see," he went on, "I know quite a number of people in your
town. Morgenroth the clothier and Gibson the dry goods man."

"Oh, do you?" she interrupted, aroused by memories of longings
their show windows had cost her.

At last he had a clew to her interest, and followed it deftly. In a
few minutes he had come about into her seat. He talked of sales of
clothing, his travels, Chicago, and the amusements of that city.

"If you are going there, you will enjoy it immensely. Have you
relatives?"

"I am going to visit my sister," she explained.
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PinkMonkey Digital Library-Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser



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