Cuffs

Definition and stakes

Alfred Ayres,  The Mentor

“ They fit better around the neck. It is better to have the collar separate and for some reasons the cuffs also—dress shirts excepted, perhaps. Let your collars always be in and strictly within the fashion, unless you would look like a rowdy, in which case you are at liberty to go to any extreme you please and to gratify any vulgar caprice you may chance to have. Your cuffs should be no larger than is necessary to admit of your slipping your hand through them when they are buttoned. Why should a man wear a cuff so large that one may see up to his elbow? ”
Source: Gutenberg

Portrait of Pansy Pansy,  Interrupted

“ When you get a pair of cuffs nicely laundried, so that they are stiff and shining, how do you enjoy struggling with them to get the cuff button in, or to get it out—especially if you are in a hurry?"
This query produced much merriment among two of the girls, which the elder sister presently explained:
"You ought to ask that question of our brother Dick. He does have the most trying times with his cuff buttons. He wants his [119] cuffs so stiff they can almost walk alone, and then he fusses and struggles to get the buttons in so as not to break the cuff.
”
Source: Gutenberg

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