But alas, Eugenics had not yet been invented and the Puritan and the Indian just naturally hated each other at first sight and so (like many another match-maker) Mother Nature slipped up in her calculations, and a wonderful flower of racial possibility was forever nipped in the bud. If the Puritan, with his piety and thrift and domesticity and his doctrine of election and the Noble Red Man, with his love of paint and syncopated music and dancing and belief in a happy Hereafter, had overcome their mutual prejudices and instead of warring with flintlocks and tomahawks, had pursued each other with engagement rings and marriage licenses, what a grand and glorious race we might be today! What a land of freedom might be ours! [Illustration] CONCERNING REVOLVING DOORS. There has been some discussion of late as to the etiquette of the revolving door. When a man accompanied by a woman is about to be revolved in it, which should go first? Some think the man should precede the woman furnishing the motive power, while she follows idly in the next compartment. Others hold that the rule “Ladies first” can have no exception, therefore the man must stand aside and let the female of his species do the rough work of starting the door’s revolution while the man, coming after, keeps it going and stops it at the right moment. “Starting something” is perhaps of all pastimes in the world the one most popular with the sex we are accustomed to call the gentle sex; one might almost say that “starting something” is Woman’s prerogative; on the other hand there is nothing on earth so abhorrent to that same gentle sex as the thing that is called Consistency; and though she may be perfectly charmed to start a revolution in South America, or in silk pajamas, or suffrage, or the rearing of children it does not follow that she will take kindly to the idea of starting the revolution of a revolving door. As for the rule “Ladies first,” its application to the etiquette of doors in general (as distinguished from the revolving variety) is purely a matter of geography. In some European countries it is the custom, when entering a room, for the man to precede the woman, and if it be a closed street or office door, the man will open it and following the door inward, hold the door open while she passes in. If the door opens outward the woman naturally enters first, since her companion must remain outside to hold the door open. The American rule compelling the woman to precede her escort when entering a room or building doubtless originated with our ancestor the cave-man. On returning to his Apartment with his wife after a hunting expedition Mr. Hairy K. Stoneaxe would say with a persuasive Neolithic smile (and gentle shove) “After you my dear,” being rewarded for his politeness by advance information as to whether there were Megatheriums or Loxolophodons or an ambuscade of jealous rivals lurking in the darkness of his stone-upholstered sitting-room.