net effect of any transformation will be related to the sum of your smallest actions. If I bore you with things you already know, be patient; knowing them and doing something about them are two different matters-and we are seek ing results.

first, watch your hands. No other physical factor is such a dead giveaway

of the homosexual. Avoid the limp wrist as you would the plague. Bend the hand forward if you must; but never let the wrist tilt it toward the back of the forearm. The latter position is favored by obvious homosexuals who sit with elbow on table (or cupped in hand) and cigarette between two outstretched fingers. At its masculine best the wrist has great rigidity, making the back of the hand a continuation of the straight line of the forearm. At its effeminate worst it is a joint on the loose, flopping the hand in any and all directions.

Develop a firm handshake. The dead-fish hand is not an exclusive property of homosexuals, but a strong grip while shaking hands will color the important first impressions of strangers.

Learn to control the little finger. The "fairy finger," I've heard it called. Brawny truck drivers can stop at their diners and while sipping coffee hoist their little fingers to the ceiling-and get away with it. But you can't, Johnnie. If you let your little finger extend to give natural balance to a heavy cup of coffee, you will let it pretend to give balance to the lightest things you handle. And that exquisite mannerism will be noticed. So tuck the offending member well in toward the palm, and learn to keep it there.

Avoid spreading your fingers except when some duty of the hands insists on it. Keep them close together, preferably touching. As a rule, the hand looks most masculine when it approximates the shape of a fist-not tightly clenched, which smacks of neurotic tension, but with the fingers curved easily and naturally.

Learn to strike a match, Johnnie. This may sound ridiculous, but homosexuals who master a hundred other masculine traits often belong at the foot of the class for this. After tearing a match from its folder, hold it so that its head points to the floor. Instead of striking it in such a way that the hand moves away from the body--as if you expect a dangerous explosionstrike it toward the belly or your chest. Mark that as the greatest "must" of all. Further, instead of using a stiff-arm sweep, make the striking motion with a quick sidewise twist of the wrist alone, upwards or toward you-I repeat, never downward or away. Strike it at waist or chest level, and fairly close to the body. Otherwise the momentary pose becomes choreographic. Even when you are lighting other cigarettes, strike the match close in and then extend it to your company.

The next is hard to get on to, but worth learning. After striking a match, twist the stem so that its tip is gripped between the first and second fingers (as you would hold a cigarette), then extend the thumb as if ready to bite a hangnail. At the same time, cup the hand enough to hold a pingpong ball. Now light your cigarette, palm turned wherever you wish, but with wrist straight, four fingers touching, and the hand maintaining its cupped appearance. A simple variation of this-helpful in the event of a hurricane-is an old Navy custom. You make a chimney of the hand that holds the match, allowing the protected flame to rise from the "O" of touching thumb and forefinger.