TWO GENTLEMEN.
I SAW two young gentlemen on a streetcar today.
One of them was grown up.
He was handsomely dressed in a gray business suit, and had very neat kidgloves and fine boots. The other was about twelve years old. His jacket had several patches, and needed more, and his shirt was of brown cotton, and not very clean. Do you wonder how I knew he was a gentleman? I will tell you.
The boy went through the car to give some message to the driver. As he returned, he gave a little jump through the door, and as he did so, his bare foot touched the grown gentleman's knee, and left a little mud on it. Turning around on the platform, he raised his straw hat, and said very politely, in a clear tone, " Please excuse me."
Then the other gentleman bowed in his turn just as he would have done to one of his own age—and said, with a pleasant smile, "Certainly."
The Iroquois Indians, many of whom are fine gentlemen, say sometimes of a rude person, "His mother did not teach him manners when he was young." I am inclined to think that the mothers of both these young gentlemen had taken a good deal of pains with their manners, because their politeness came so naturally and easily.
FIGHT hard against a hasty temper.
Anger will come, but resist it stoutly.
A spark may set a house on fire.
A fit of passion may give you cause to
mourn all the days of your life.
IT was Johnson who said:
"The diminutive chains of habit are seldom heavy enough to be felt until they are too strong to be broken."