dinner looked at something below the table whenever a dish was handed to her. She said to me, "No doubt you wonder at what I am looking so often; it is a list my doctor gave me of the things I may not eat." I replied, "If you wish for health, tear up that paper and eat what you like." To be sure that Scotchman was only prudent who said to a servant behind him, offering a dish which he could not see, "I never eat anything that is inveesible."

If we are to be genial to our fellow-creatures next day, we must only eat half as much at a dinner-party as we might eat. Not a little of the bad manners of the world comes from indigestion. In many cases the apothecary is more useful than the moralist. I heard it said of a generous-living lady who was rude at home that she should take an occasional pill for the sake of her family.

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CHAPTER XV

CLOTHES AND MANNERS

AN old squire in the West of Ireland called upon the mess of some military officers. On going away he remarked with great consideration : Now perhaps you'll be after asking my son Tom to dine; but don't do anything of the kind, for he has neither clothes nor manners." The two things here coupled together, clothes and manners, do not in actual fact always go together.

A well-dressed crowd is often a badlymannered crowd, as the police know to their

cost.

Seeing a costly gown trailing in the mud, a lady who was walking near the owner said: "Excuse me, but your beautiful dress is being spoiled." "What is that to you? you did not pay for it," replied the snob. "Neither did you," was the deserved rejoinder," or you would be more careful.”

Red rags irritate bulls, and, on occasions,

clothes call forth the choler and accompanying discourtesy of human creatures. Is not this the

case, for instance, when a wife presents to an impoverished husband a long bill for up-to-date fig-leaves?

Still, refinement in dress is generally associated with refinement in manners. The innate sensitive feeling which rejects the unbecoming in the one avoids it in the other.

At one of the oldest social clubs of Oxford the qualification for membership was to be bene natus, bene vestitus, moderate doctus, which means, of course, that the new-comer must be well born, well dressed, and moderately, not oppressively, learned. "The apparel oft proclaims the man," and still more the gentleman.

The linen of such a one is immaculate, and he never deserves a rebuke such as the celebrated Lady Holland gave to an untidy youth who sat next her at dinner. Plunging her hand into his pocket, she drew out his handkerchief, and, with a sniff of disgust, gave it to the servant behind her chair, with the words, "Take that to the wash ! "

The ideal gentleman scorns mock cuffs and fronts, Brummagen jewellery, or, indeed, any lie; he never over-dresses. His clothes are, like himself, unassuming, and in harmony with his doings and surroundings. People call him

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a well-dressed man, but no one remembers what on any particular occasion he wore. He is a gentleman to the tips of his nails," and therefore his nails are always neat. He never mixes up ceremonial clothes and dishabille. You would not see him in a tall hat and short coat or in a pot-hat and frock-coat.

It often cures a nervous headache for a woman to put on her best frock. Good, well-fitting clothes give confidence and improve carriage and manners. We feel that we have to live up to them. Even goodness and genius must avoid slovenliness.

Mr. Bernard Shaw has said: "My main reason for adopting literature as a profession was that, as the author is never seen by his clients, he need not dress respectably. You have no idea what I look like in the street!" If this selfconscious gentleman did condescend to decent dress, his address and manners might amend.

There is discipline in clothes. It is good for a man to be made to sit up by a stiff collar, and if a stud torment him let him forget himself by doing something polite for one who has real sorrows.

A young Englishman who was stationed in a place a hundred miles from another white man put on a dress-coat every evening for dinner. On returning to civilisation he said, "That

dress-coat kept me in touch with the old country and the old life; it kept me from becoming a slacker."

During the retreat from Russia a general came to Napoleon in full dress and freshly shaven. Seeing him thus in the midst of ruin and confusion, the Emperor said, "General, you are a brave man ! "

One of our most successful generals was, when a young officer, favourably reported on because he had kept a clean collar for a big fight which he knew was impending.

Tidy dress prevents old age from being an eyesore. Why should a woman of forty or fifty bind rather than dress herself in dingycoloured materials? (Women and insects should wear bright colours.) Why should she look like a shaggy old donkey? The "erring shoestring," the sweet disorder are only excusable in youth.

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We do not say that a man or woman should be dressy, but only that he or she should not offend or debase public taste. The worstdressed people generally are those who aim at being smart; they only succeed in being vulgar. Genuine gentlefolk prefer to be under-dressed than over-dressed, especially on unceremonial occasions. They do not wish either to be in the height of fashion or in the depth of "dowdy