The maids are at last coming around to the modern way of thinking--that in unions there is strength. Here is an intimate glimpse of what will happen if they ever start striking. The maid is obeying the first law of all agitators,---be sure to strike at the most inconvenient time. She is leaving her employer, so to speak, sunk--just on the point of throwing up the sponge and going down for the third and last time. THE ULTIMATE HORROR There are many terrible things in this world, as someone has so cleverly said, but the worst of all would be a strike of footmen. Why, all social life would be completely paralyzed by it. Just see what a cruel thing it would be. The footmen in this case are striking for shorter hours, higher wages, and looser liveries; they have walked out in the middle of the caviarre, leaving the guests face to face with starvation--and, what is worse, face to face with each other. [Illustration] THE PORTRAITS OF OLD Having your portrait painted, in the good old days, used to be a comparatively simple matter. It was as much a part of a woman’s social duties as going to the opera, or having her hair marcelled. All you needed was a black evening gown, a lap-dog, a cheque for $10,000, and an appointment at the studio of Mr. John Sargent. [Illustration] The Art of Fashionable Portraiture _You Can’t Quite Be “It,” Without the Aid of a Modernist Artist_ [Illustration] GO TO THE AUNT It used to be considered awfully radical and just the least bit Bohemian, to have your portrait done by a bearded foreigner like Monsieur Chartran,--local talent was simply nowhere. It was always obligatory, while posing for the portrait, to bring along a trained aunt, to keep off draughts and gentlemen callers. When the canvas was done, you could almost always tell, in six guesses, who the portrait was intended to be. [Illustration] THE OVAL-SHAPED LADY But having one’s portrait merely _painted_ isn’t being done any more. The thing to do now is to lease a sculptor, and have him do a simple little portrait in marble, and call it “Mrs. ...--a Mood.” Prospective sitters for modernist busts should remember never to show surprise at the finished product. Never behave like the lady in the sketch; remember that only novices faint on seeing the completed masterpiece. The thing to do is to clasp the hands, gaze yearningly at the ceiling and murmur in passionate undertones, “It is wonderful--but wonderful! The feeling, the soul, the ego--how could you know?” [Illustration] [Illustration] THE HUMAN EGG If you want to go that far, you can have your portrait done by one of the cubist sculptors, who are causing such a furor--among themselves. Just ask the first sculptor you meet at dinner if he won’t do a bust of you; he is sure to be a cubist. He will only be too glad to oblige with a charming trifle, looking rather like an egg after a hard Easter, and to name it “Arrangement: Mrs. B.” THE NUDE SOUL