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<h2>FAST AND LOOSE</h2> <div class="figlefta" style="width: 10%;"> <ANTIMG src="images/i_099.png" width-obs="100%" alt="T" /></div> There is no constancy so affecting as that of a faithful button. Friends may be devoted; yet they seek your company partly for the pleasure of it. Dogs may show the uttermost fidelity; but you feed them. But the attachment of buttons is without taint of self: it is pure, spontaneous. This loyalty is the more remarkable when you consider how empty their lives are. The outlook through their buttonholes is but a narrow one. Their daily labor, a mere mechanical buttoning into and out of an uncongenial flap, is deadeningly monotonous. (I have seldom known a button whose heart was[Pg 100] really in its work.) In surroundings so little adapted to the building up of character, they display a stanchness that is akin to stoicism. Indeed, many a button will stick doggedly to an old weatherbeaten garment long after the perfidious nap has fled. There are, unfortunately, buttons wanting in probity, deceitful buttons that pretend to be strongly attached to you when detained by but a single thread, irresponsible buttons that fly off at a tangent, immodest buttons (of the cloth-covered variety) that disrobe in public. But deliberately vicious buttons are rare. The fact is, few buttons would go to the bad, were it not for the heartless indifference of their owners. Too often a headstrong young button, that might easily have been saved had it been brought up short the moment it showed signs of looseness, is allowed to reach the end of its rope, fall, and be utterly lost. And the dereliction of one may mean the ruin of its family. I was told of a sad case, once, where an entire clan of brown buttons, dwelling happily together on the front of a coat and waistcoat—polished, distinctive buttons[Pg 101] they were, not be matched anywhere—were cruelly banished, because of a single erring member. While to neglect buttons is most reprehensible, there is such a thing as showing them too much indulgence. For buttons must not be coddled: when toyed with, they droop. Tender-hearted women, actuated by sympathy and not realizing the consequences of what they were doing, have been known to pamper buttons. Because a button has a pleasant, open countenance, one of these misguided persons will support it on her costume in idleness. She may even surround herself with a retinue of glittering sycophants that never knew a buttonhole—great saucerlike hangers-on, lolling on their stems; brazen braggadocios, flashing with insolent militarism; and puny silken pettinesses, mere pills of buttons. Often I have been shocked to see a swarm of these drones perched indolently on the show part of a garment while, underneath, a squadron of industrious hooks and eyes grappled with the work to be done. Such sights are, to thoughtful people, almost[Pg 102] as depressing as the massacre of helpless shirt buttons by a baleful flatiron. Are buttons to become effete? Will they, in the course of generations of dolce far niente, lose their stamina? The signs are ominous. <hr class="chap" /> [Pg 103] <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/i_103.png" width-obs="400" alt="Man consulting female psychologist" /></div> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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