Omaha daily bee., 1919-09-06
BY BEATRICE FAIRFAX.


some time or other. how delightful
it would be to hand up ones per-
sonality on a hook in the ward
robe, go out and be someone else
for little while.
We are all quite ready to assume
another's problems, worries, sor-
rows, even, under the impression
that they don't really amount to
much. It's our own problems. wor-
ries and boredom that really count.
Zangwll has delightful story on
this theme. in which a prime min
lister used to change places with a
pastry cook. And the late Kath-
crime Thurston wrote a far less ar
tistic, but more widely read novel
on the same lines. A drug-taking
member OF Parliament used to
swap lives with a penniless journal
ist who resembled him. Perhaps
you remember the story, it was
called "The MasQueraders."
O. Henry's tales abound in such
themes, but it was reserved for Mr..
McManus, an express drive on So
week to turn these heroes of ic-
ton into regular pikers with his
Arabian Nights "goings-on," here
in New York last week.
And why Mr.. McManus was
taken in hand by the law and COM
PEELED to pay SIS a week almony
out of a salary of $22, instead of
being made secretary of the treas
ury, comptroller of the currency or
some such job where his financial
genius would have real scope, is
mystery.
You will recall from the news
paper accounts that this 76-year- old
expressman went from house to
house and shop to shop delivering
packages by day, but no sooner did
the lights begin to twinkle along
the Great White Way than Nc
Manus put on luxurious clothes s.
the expression is his WITHSTAND be-
came man about town.
Now, the interesting thing about
this septuagenarian sport is not that
he went out to see the lights
twinkle, not that his wife had him
hailed into court and demanded ali
mony not that he wearied of being
an elderly expressman by day and
enjoyed masquerading as a gilded
near-youth by night-these things
have been done since the days of
Rameses I'd by gentlemen of ancient
Egypt and modern New York. But
the wonder is how McManus man
aged to do them on So a week.
His wife, who seems to have had
no appreciation of her husbands
financial genius, said he got tips
that brought his income up to $40
week. Even so, $40 a week is
not sum to conjure with in these
days of the high cost of living.
Clearly some enterprising publish
er, on the alert for genius, ought
to persuade McManus to give us his
memoirs.
Story Has Its Psychic Side.
Apart from its deep financial in
terest, the STORY has another inter
Sesting side. 1t proves conclusively
that vanity-plain, common or gar
den vanity that we pray to be de-
livered fronts one of the most
valuable of human assets. Vanity
is the salt of life, it not only pre-
serves. it also gives flavor.
If McManus had been content to
wilt into his carpet slippers and
smoke pipe on his fire escape dur
ing the warm summer evenings, he
probably would have looked 76 and
( acted like it, too. But it was his
ambition to be regarded as a man
about-town and that ambition kept
him young. His real life began
after working hours, when he had
put up his team, and made ready
for his Arabian Night entertain
ment.
The delusion that he was a
sport" preserved him, it became
the armor that warded off the sings
and arrows of outrageous fortune.
He looked not much older than his
wife who had hailed him into court,
and she was but 48.
Vanity is now recognized, not as
one of the deadly sins, but as ire
mendously conserving influence. 1t
comes under the head of what psy-
biologists term compensation"
and the rule regarding it appears to
work inversely. The more meager
the gifts, the greater the subjects
self-conceit.
We have probably all encountered
the ill-favored woman, no longer
young and never attractive, who
goes through life imagining that no
man can resist her destinations.
Author of Imaginative Tales.
She is the author of those charm
ingly imaginative tales about being
followed on the streets, spoken to,
annoyed to the point of being COM
PEELED to take a companion with
her when she walks abroad. Such
a woman once confided to me that
the death OF highly important
man was due to her rejection of his
suit. knew that the man in ques-
ton had met her but three times,
and l happened to be we'll acquaint-
ed with his fiancee to whom he was
genuinely devoted.
Yet that poor homely woman
imagined herself to be the love of a
great mans life. And the tears
that fell as she wept over the &C
count of her GOODNESS to him were
perhaps the most genuine that she
ever shed.
Maybe you are so unfortunate as
to number among your acquaint-
ances a dull, narrow, almost litter
ate man who will tell you how he
would have run the war, and what
he would have done at the peace
conference. And how he would
have stood no nonsense from this
power or that potente.