These Corset Builders, while they might not do a whole lot to help civilization, are a tremendous aid to the Eyesight. They have got what you would call a Herculean task as they really have to improve on nature. The same problem confronts them that does the people that run the Subways in New York City. They both have to get so many pounds of human flesh into a given radius. The subway does it by having strong men to push and shove until they can just close the door with only the last man’s foot out. But the Corset Carpenters arrive at the same thing by a series of strings. They have what is known as the Back Lace. This is known as a One Man Corset. Now the Front Lace can be operated without a confederate. By judiciously holding your breath and with a conservative intake on the Diaphragm you arrange yourself inside this. Then you tie the strings to the door knob and slowly back away. When your speedometer says you have arrived at exactly 36, why, haul in your lines and tie off. We have also the Side Lace that is made in case you are very fleshy, and need two accomplices to help you congregate yourself. You stand in the middle and they pull from both sides. This acts something in the nature of a vise. This style has been known to operate so successful that the victims’ buttons have popped off their shoes. Of course, the fear of every fleshy Lady is the broken Corset String. I sat next to a catastrophe of this nature once. We didn’t know it at first, the deluge seemed so gradual, till finally the Gentleman on the opposite side of her and myself were gradually pushed off our Chairs. To show you what a wonderful thing this Corseting is, that Lady had come to the Dinner before the broken string episode in a small Roadster. She was delivered home in a Bus. They have also worked out a second line of control, or a place to park an extra string on the back. You can change a string now while you wait, and they have demountable strings. Now, of course, not as many women wear Corsets as used to but what they have lost in women they have made up with men. When corsets were a dollar a pair they used to be as alike as two Fords. A clerk just looked you over, decided on your circumference and wheel base and handed you out one. They come in long Boxes and you were in doubt at first if it was a Corset or a Casket. Nowadays with the Wraparound and the Diaphragm-Control, and all those things a Corset Manufacturer uses more rubber than a Tire Co. Imagine me being asked to talk at a Corset Dinner, anyway; Me, who has been six years with Ziegfeld Follies and not a Corset in the Show.