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kindly man, clutching vainly at the garments of a youth that
had long slipped past him. Jo Hertz, in one of those pinch-waist suits

and a belted coat and a little green hat, walking up Michigan Avenue of
a bright winter's afternoon, trying to take the curb with a jaunty
youthfulness against which every one of his fat-encased muscles
rebelled, was a sight for mirth or pity, depending on one's vision.
The gay-dog business was a late phase in the life of Jo Hertz. He had
been a quite different sort of canine. The staid and harassed brother of
three unwed and selfish sisters is an underdog.
At twenty-seven Jo had been the dutiful, hard-working son (in the
wholesale harness business) of a widowed and gummidging mother,
who called him Joey. Now and then a double wrinkle would appear
between Jo's eyes--a wrinkle that had no business there at twenty-seven.
Then Jo's mother died, leaving him handicapped by a deathbed promise,
the three sisters, and a three-story-and-basement house on Calumet
Avenue. Jo's wrinkle became a fixture.
"Joey," his mother had said, in her high, thin voice, "take care of the
girls."
"I will, Ma," Jo had choked.
"Joey," and the voice was weaker, "promise me you won't marry till the
girls are all provided for." Then as Jo had hesitated, appalled: "Joey, it's
my dying wish. Promise!"
"I promise, Ma," he had said.
Whereupon his mother had died, comfortably, leaving him with a
completely ruined life.
They were not bad-looking girls, and they had a certain style, too. That
is, Stell and Eva had. Carrie, the middle one, taught school over on the
West Side. In those days it took her almost two hours each way. She
said the kind of costume she required should have been corrugated steel.
But all three knew what was being worn, and they wore it--or fairly
faithful copies of it. Eva, the housekeeping sister, had a needle knack.
She could skim the State Street windows and come away with a mental

photograph of every separate tuck, hem, yoke, and ribbon. Heads of
departments showed her the things they kept in drawers, and she went
home and reproduced them with the aid of a seamstress by the day.
Stell, the youngest, was the beauty. They called her Babe.
Twenty-three years ago one's sisters did not strain at the household
leash, nor crave a career. Carrie taught school, and hated it. Eva kept
house expertly and complainingly. Babe's profession was being the
family beauty, and it took all her spare time. Eva always let her sleep
until ten.
This was Jo's household, and he was the nominal head of it. But it was
an empty title. The three women dominated his life. They weren't con-
sciously selfish. If you had called them cruel they would have put you
down as mad. When you are the lone brother of three sisters, it means
that you must constantly be calling for, escorting, or dropping one of
them somewhere. Most men of Jo's age were standing before their
mirror of a Saturday night, whistling blithely and abstractedly while
they discarded a blue polka-dot for a maroon tie, whipped off the
maroon for a shot-silk and at the last moment decided against the
shot-silk in favor of a plain black-and-white because she had once said
she preferred quiet ties. Jo, when he should have been preening his
feathers for conquest, was saying:
"Well, my God, I AM hurrying! Give a man time, can't you? I just got
home. You girls been laying around the house all day. No wonder
you're ready."
He took a certain pride in seeing his sisters well dressed, at a time when
he should have been reveling in fancy waistcoats and brilliant-hued
socks, according to the style of that day and the inalienable right of any
unwed male under thirty, in any day. On those rare occasions when his
business necessitated an out-of-town trip, he would spend half a day
floundering about the shops selecting handkerchiefs, or stockings, or
feathers, or gloves for the girls. They always turned out to be the wrong
kind, judging by their reception.
From Carrie, "What in the world do I want of long white gloves!"

"I thought you didn't have any," Jo would say.
"I haven't. I never wear evening clothes."
Jo would pass a futile hand over the top of his head, as was his way
when disturbed. "I just thought you'd like them. I thought every girl
liked long white gloves. Just," feebly, "just to--to have."
"Oh, for pity's sake!"
And from Eva or Babe, "I've GOT silk stockings, Jo." Or, "You
brought me handkerchiefs the last time."
There was something selfish in his giving, as there always is in any gift
freely and joyfully made. They never suspected the exquisite