THAT IRRITABLE PUCKER.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19748, 26 March 1926, Page 15

THAT IRRITABLE PUCKER.

Do you. know one of the little habits of which girls are guilty more often than they think, and which has probably driven more men away from them than we ever dreamed of? It’s an annoying little habit, something we don’t realise we have; something we usually reserve for the youngest brother when he makes a nuisance of himself, or for the stupid telephone operator when she gets to the wrong number for the fourth time; or for the disagreeable old maid who vvorks in our office and insists on interrupting us in our work to tell us about the exciting bridge hand she held last night. All these unfortunates we are apt to answer with a disagreeable little pucker ap T,o aring in our fo ~ds right over the bridge of the nose, a horrid little frown that doesn’t mean a good healthy emotion like anger nor even pain—just petty irritation. A HARD NOTE. And with the pucker a hard note creeps into our voices, a rasping, petulant note that causes the hearer a feeling of annoyance purely from the sound. How many times a day, 1 wonder, do you look up from some espt.ially absorbing task or book or game, interrupted by someone who has no business to interrupt, and ask with that pucker and that rising pettish inflection: “What do you want?” And how many times a day is the person who interrupted you conscious of a feeling of annoyance and impatience as he notices this reaction on your part? Of course, you will say, you only reserve that particular little trick for bores and nuisances and people who don't count. Yes, that’s how you start. You save that stunt for impossible people, and you keep all your smiles and dimples and twinkles for the men of whom you are most fend. But one evening without realism? it, when someone whom you particularly like rushes in to keep an appointment with vou half an hour late, and tells you that, after all, you won’t he able to go to the - dance because he forgot to buy the tickets and they’re all gone, I wonder if you realise that your forehead creases in a most unbecoming fashion as you exclaim: “Oh, isn’t that a shame?” And, in spite of your effort to make your remark sound uncomplaining and cheerful, a horrid note of petulance has crept into it. And the hero is chilled, hurt somehow, because you look so disagreeable. Oh. you will find •'■ourself doing it time and again, if you don’t look out. Nothing in the world scares a man away faster than an irritable woman, Irritation has spoiled more mnrriatres than vou would ever believe possible, and men fivht shv of women who shows signs of it.— Women’s Weekly.