SECTION 24. I feel respect for the man—and he is one in a
hundred—who, when he is waiting or sitting unoccupied, refrains from rattling or beating time with anything that happens to be handy,—his stick, or knife and fork, or whatever else it may be. The probability is that he is thinking of something.
With a large number of people, it is quite evident that their power of sight completely dominates over their power of thought; they seem to be conscious of existence only when they are making a noise; unless indeed they happen to be smoking, for this serves a similar end. It is for the same reason that they never fail to be all eyes and ears for what is going on around them.