Nathan Dane Urner

“ Never gorge at a luncheon, as if there were never to be a dinner-hour. A gentleman is never supposed to be ravenous.
Never indiscriminately mix your liquors at this hour. A little whisky or brandy as an appetizer, with not more than four 32 varieties of wine while eating, and topping off with a few mugs of beer, should be quite satisfying.
Never, if at a fashionable collation, discuss business, politics or abstruse scientific problems with the fair creatures present. Sink the shop, if only for ten minutes.
Never jocosely give wrong names to well-known dishes before you. ”

“ Never enter a crowded auditorium with your thumbs in the arm-holes of your waistcoat, head thrown back, chin in air, and the stub of a cigar between the teeth. Self-consciousness may be pushed to an extreme.
Never lunch between acts, in full view of audience, on cheap sandwiches, peanuts and ginger-beer, even if you have missed your supper. ”

“ A lady’s parlor is not a bear-garden.
Never, on the other hand, be cowering and sniveling, as though desirous of some one to kick you as a boon. In deportment, the demeanor of the rabbit is no more to be emulated than that of the famished wolf. ”

“ Never, if suddenly confronted on the promenade by a hostile acquaintance, accept his proposition to fight him in the gutter for a pot of beer. You are not a Prize Fighter.
Never forget to pick up a lady’s handkerchief, if she lets it fall by accident; not with effusive familiarity, but daintily on the end of your cane or umbrella. Common civility is one of the cardinal points of good breeding. ”

“ Never loudly discuss politics, divorce suits or ministerial scandals at the theater or at a concert when the performance is going on. If speech is silver and silence golden, discussion at such times is metallic to annoyance. ”

“ Never, in being introduced to a lady, make a pun on her name, if it is a homely one, or jokingly allude to rouge-pots and whited sepulchers, if she is no longer young, with an air of having resorted to preservative aids. Illogical but intuitive, the feminine mind is swift to imagine and resent an innuendo where perhaps none was intended. ”

“ Never pose on street corners, attitudinize before show-case mirrors, or whistle an opera bouffe air while watching a funeral cortege.
Never, if with a lady, ask her to wait for you on the curb while you step into an adjacent bar-room to see a man. The ruse is a transparent one, and, moreover, she may be thirsty herself. ”

“ Never, if escorting one lady or several, scuffle and bandy oaths with ticket-speculators at a theater-entrance. Cultivate an easy hauteur of manner.
Never, under like environments, offer to bounce the attendant policeman, boots, blue-coat and buttons, if he will only drop his club. Your ladies may object, if the policeman does not.
Never, upon entering, seize an usher by the throat, rub your coupons into his eyes, and loudly demand your seats or 87 his life. A public entertainment is not a rat-baiting.
Never retain your hat and take off your coat and waistcoat at theater or opera. ”

“ Even your excuse that you want to borrow your car-fare may not be mollifying, and people have nerves.
Never keep gnawing your mustache, twisting your whiskers into fantastic braids, nor making your hat wag about on your head through muscular contraction of the scalp.
Never crackle your knuckles with sharp reports, grit your teeth, heave deep, wheezing sighs, nor keep running your 84 fingers through your hair till it stands up like a brush-heap. If you imagine one or all of these feats to be uniquely interesting, hire out to a dime museum. ”

“ Apologize, even if you have slumbered on your neighbor’s shoulder, and murmur your excuses even while disappearing under the table. An exponent of high breeding never forgets to be a gentleman under the most adverse circumstances. ”

“ Never be so self-conscious as to fancy yourself a cave-bear and other people but field-mice. “True politeness will betray no hoggishness,” as an ancient writer has sagely observed.
Never, especially with your superiors, buttonhole people, or shake your fist in their faces, or pound them in the ribs when you have occasion to address them. This is more appropriate to a horse auction than a drawing-room, and is in violation of good form.
Never lean across one person with your 16 hands on his knees and your back-hair in his face, to talk to another. ”

“ Never, on the other hand, be so over-civil as to be mistaken for a dancing master or a bunco-steerer.
Never forget that a gentleman is a gentleman everywhere. Even McGilder was occasionally taken for one. ”

“ Never use the butter-knife in besmearing and plastering your bread with butter an inch thick. Better tear up the bread in small chunks, and sop up the butter with it. 27
Never cut meat with your teaspoon, sip tea from a fork, or painfully suggest sword-swallowing by eating with your knife. Try to appear civilized.
Never convey the impression that you are shoveling food down an excavation rather than eating it. Cultivated people eat, barbarians engulf.
Never smack the lips and roll the eyes while masticating, accompanying the operation with such expressions as, “Oh, golly, but that’s good!” ”

“ Never bury your nose in your plate, while 38 using your knife, fork and spoon at the same time, after the manner of Chinese chop-sticks. Maintain as erect an attitude as you can without endangering your spinal column, though not as if you had swallowed a poker.
Never exhibit surprise or irritation, should you overturn your soup in your lap. Rise majestically, and while the waiter is wiping it off, calmly declare that you were born under a lucky star, since not a drop has spattered your clothes. ”

“ Never cultivate a broad, teeth-husking smile, unless your ivories are in good order. Tobacco-stained fangs are at an especial disadvantage in this form.
Never fail to cleanse the teeth at least once a week. A tooth-brush is best.
Never wear your hat in church, in a boudoir, nor at a marriage or burial service; never, on the other hand, take it off when overtaken by a blizzard or a 81 cyclone. If neither the blizzard nor the cyclone does that much for you, you may consider yourself fortunate. ”

“ Never appear among ladies with your boots covered with mud, and your whole person suggestive of having been rolled in the gutter. If you haven’t a servant or wife to clean you up, undertake the task yourself, however distasteful. 76
Never wear your hat tilted far over your nose, with a cigar meeting its brim at a rising angle of forty-five degrees from your lips. ”

“ Never walk with a high-and-mighty stud-horse gait, nor yet slouch and slink along as if you had robbed a hen-roost, nor yet with a bounding hoop-la sort of prance, like a clown in the circus-ring. Never, either, walk bow-legged or club-footed, 77 if you can help it. ”

“ Walter Raleigh, the father of tobacco-using, even carried his own cuspidor. 51
Never munch nuts or gorge fruits in public. A lady or gentleman on the afternoon promenade, with a peeled pineapple in one hand, a huge slice of watermelon in the other, and the jaws industriously working, is not an edifying spectacle.
Never forget, if with a lady, that she is under your protection, not you under hers.
Never rush her past an oyster-saloon at a run, or wildly distract her attention from a confectioner’s window. As a woman, she has her privileges. ”

“ Never chew tobacco, or smoke a pipe at receptions. If you must do the one or the other, be sure to use the cuspidor; but it is safer to let up on tobacco until out-of-doors, or in your own room.
Never calumniate people, or give a false coloring to your statements. In other words, don’t lie any more than you can help. ”

“ Never bring your opera-glass to bear like a siege-gun, with your lips spread open as over a Barmecides free-lunch. Even 89 a harsh gritting of the teeth, during the operation, is not in the best taste.
Never hold it for a lady to look through, while adjusting her line of vision by the back of her head, and advising her in a hoarse whisper as to the best method for “gunning” her object. Are you at the opera or the race-course? ”

“ Never, if the lady be young but homely, at once patronizingly remark that, after all, handsome is as handsome does, and you have even known the dowdiest and most unattractive girls make good matches through tact and perseverance. ”

“ Never ram your knife more than half-way down your throat. Hack with your knife, claw up with your fork; that is what they’re made for. Never take up a great meat-slice on your fork, and then leisurely nibble around the corners, making steady inroads till your teeth strike silver. This is a method rigidly interdicted among the highest circles.
Never eat fish with a spoon, if the silver butter-knife can be appropriated for that purpose. ”

“ Never bawl out at the top of your lungs, or try to monopolize all the talk; you are neither in the stock exchange nor a cattle yard.
Never, if bald and warm, mop and rub up your head, ears and neck with your handkerchief. A reception or drawing-room is not a barber-shop. ”

“ Never drink too much wine. True, there are a variety of opinions as to how much is too much; but be prudent, be resolved, never make an exhibition of yourself, at least try to knock off before being paralyzed, and be happy. ”

“ A painting may be meritorious without being “stunning;” a handsome wall-paper is not necessarily “excruciating;” and you should hardly call a choice dish of ham and eggs “divine.” Let not your enthusiasm overleap itself. ”

“ A man with a head like a monkey’s is not necessarily a savant; nor are putty-like faces, with idiotic lips and China-blue eyes, in 82 women, necessarily Elizabeth Cady Stantonesque in intellectual scope and oratorical brilliancy. You would scarcely mistake Red Leary for Herbert Spencer.
Never carry a lighted cigar into a millinery store or powder-magazine.
Never be over servile to good clothes for themselves alone. The professional thief who lost his life in a double tragedy in Sixth avenue not long ago, was one of the best dressed men in New York. ”

“ Never forget that duty rhymes with beauty, not with booty, and that morn doesn’t rhyme with dawn at all—poetasters to the contrary notwithstanding. Even a 61 gentleman of the world will not wholly despise the soft demands of rhythm. ”

“ Never permit a lady to pay for the tickets at the box-office. If you havn’t any money, don’t go.
Never, on seeing a lady home, hint that ice-cream and oyster-saloons are dangerous places at night, the common resorts of tramps, thieves, prize-fighters and penniless adventurers. Veracity is one of the characteristics of high breeding. 93
Never, if her residence is closed for the night, leave her on the stoop, while you go for a policeman to batter in the door. ”

“ Never be icy or contemptuous; but never, on the other hand, be fiery or too familiar. Emulate neither the iceberg nor the volcano; there is a happy medium that can be cultivated to advantage.
Never loll at full length on the sofa, or 13 bestride a chair with your elbows resting on the back, and the soles of your boots plainly visible to your vis-a-vis. Sofas are not beds, nor are chairs vaulting-horses. ”

“ Never blow your nose with a loud trumpeting during an especially interesting 92 scene, or while a difficult aria is being sung. A fanfare is not necessarily in sympathy with a tremolo.
Never, if with a lady, individualize the features of a ballet. ”

“ Never lounge back in your chair, and 45 request the waiter to pour wine down your throat, if too unsteady to longer hold a glass. This is apt to be noticeable.
Never rest both elbows on the table, while shuffling your feet nervously underneath it, and trying to steer one more glass to your lips. If paralysis threatens, request to be led out.
Never lose your temper. “When a man has well-dined,” says an old playwright, “he should feel in a good humor with all the world.” ”

“ Cazuela, or breakfast soup, is a 25 Spanish-American custom that has not yet been imported.
Never, before expressing your preference for tea or coffee, ask your hostess which she would recommend as the least poisonous? She might not consider the insinuation as complimentary to herself.
Never dispose of eggs by biting off the small end, throwing the head far back, and noisily sucking them out of the shells. A spoon, or even a fork, is preferable. Besides you might encounter a bad one when too late.
Never wipe your nose on your napkin, or use it in dusting off your boots on rising. ”

“ Never intrude your maladies upon the general conversation. People cannot be so much interested in your bunions or backache as you are.
Never violently abuse people who may overhear you, nor be bitingly witty at another’s expense. ”

“ Never smoke in the street, unless you can afford a good article. Chinese cigarettes, long nines, and black cutty pipes are decidedly in bad form.
Never, if you must smoke, whiffle your smoke in others’ faces, or playfully burn them in the back of the neck, or ask a lady for a light. ”

“ Never sulk and growl under your breath, like a bear with a sore head, because you fancy yourself neglected. Brighten up, and even snicker, rather than adopt 20 this gloomy course. Moroseness is dispiriting. ”

“ Never fail to rise when the ladies are leaving the table, and to remain standing somehow, no matter how unsteadily, until the last petticoat has disappeared. Then, your duty having been performed, 46 you can roll under the table, if you want to, or see-saw back to your anchorage, and see if you can hold any more wine. ”

“ Never wear full evening dress in the early morning, especially if you intend working in the garden, or whitewashing the back fence, before going down town.
Never wear dancing pumps in rainy or snowy weather, or arctics if it is warm and fine. ”