Slicker

Term coined by F. Scott Fitzgerald in This Side of Paradise (1920)

"A slicker."

"What the devil's that?"

"Well, it's something that that there's a lot of

them. You're not one, and neither am I, though I am

more than you are."

"Who is one? What makes you one?"

They spent two evenings getting an exact definition.

The slicker was good-looking or clean-locking', he had

brains, social brains, that is, and he used all means on

the broad path of honesty to get ahead, be popular, ad-

mired, and never in trouble. He dressed well, was par-

ticularly neat in appearance, and derived his name

from the fact that his hair was inevitably worn short,

soaked in water or tonic, parted in the middle, and

slicked back as the current of fashion dictated.