“Until I discover some signs of value in my son-in-law. Then he may discover some signs of value in the bonds. Our America is a peculiar country, Dawkins.”
“Peculiar will do, sir,” said he with respectful insolence. “But I should have chosen another word.”
I shook my head laughingly. “What bad losers you English are!” said I. “But—I’ll not detain you. Good morning, Dawkins.”
“Then I am to understand, sir——”
But I had my back squarely to him and was busy with Markham, who took his cue for the little comedy we were playing like the well-trained American business man that he was. Presently Markham said, “He’s gone, and I never saw a madder man get out of a room more awkwardly.”
You, gentle reader, who know about as much of the science of managing men in practical life as you know of any other phase of the world-that-is—you, gentle reader, are shocked by my rudeness to a polite, well-educated, well-dressed Englishman. And you hope—and feel—that I overreached myself. But let me inform you—not for your instruction but for my own satisfaction—courtesy has to be used most sparingly. Human vanity is so monstrous that men eagerly read into politeness to them—the most ordinary politeness—evidence that their superiority is inspiring fear, awe and desire to conciliate them. You often hear men in high place severely criticised for being rude, short, arrogant, insulting. Do not condemn them too hastily. It may be that they were driven into this attitude toward their fellows by the disastrous consequences of courtesy. Be polite to a man and he will misunderstand. Be cool to him and he, thickly enveloped in his own good opinion of himself, will not feel it. Rudeness, overt and unmistakable, is often the one way to reach him and save not only yourself but also him from the consequences of his vanity. It is the instinct of big men to be big and simple and natural in their dealings with their fellows. The mass of little men with big vanities compels them to suppress this instinct; and by suppression it inevitably becomes in time crushed out of existence. How can one who is busy continue to show consideration for others if they, instead of showing a return consideration for him, take it as tribute to their importance and begin to rear and impose and trample?
To cite my own relatively unimportant case, I have long had a reputation for coldness and meager civility in my business relations. I recall distinctly the desperate pressure of sheer imposition that led me to abandon my early openness to all comers at all times. And I admit that I did change; rather abruptly, too, for it suddenly came to me why I was slipping backwards. But looking only at my career since the change, when I think of the boredom I have endured, the folly I have permitted to waste my valuable time—when I recall the forbearance I have shown in sparing impudent and lazy incompetence where I might, yes, ought to have used the ax—when I think of my good-natured tolerance in face of extremest daily provocation, year after year, I marvel at myself and feel how unjust, how characteristically the verdict of little shallow men, is the attack on me as cold and unsympathetic. When I consider how the leaders of the human race have been tempted to tyranny, I cannot understand why history is able to record comparatively few real tyrants, most of them being homicidal lunatics like Nero, or success-crazed megalomaniacs like Napoleon, and almost none men of sanity. If the great of earth were as vain, as selfishly, as egotistically inconsiderate of the small as the small are of the great and of each other, would not the story of history have come to an end long ago for lack of surviving characters?
Two days after Dawkins came Crossley. I knew that in America there is no one so easily frightened as a rich man who has inherited his wealth and does not know whether, if he lost it, he could make a living or not. All rich men are cowards, but that species is craven. I suspected that the same thing was true of the European type—the nobleman with the grotesque pose of disdain for money that convinces and captivates you, gentle reader, and your favorite authors. Crossley’s face instantly showed me that my suspicion was correct. He had been dissipating wildly for several weeks, but it did not account for the look in his eyes. If, gentle reader, you wish to learn the truth about the aristocracy you worship—which you do not—get an aristocrat where you can cut off or turn on his supply of cash at will. You will then discover that he who has a stiff neck also has supple knees—the stiffer the neck the suppler the knees.
Crossley was a clever chap in his way; that is, he knew his business of idle spender of unearned money thoroughly. Another mode of putting it would be the commonplace and less exact if more alluring phrase “aristocrat to his finger tips.” There are many modes of cringing. He showed judgment and taste—judgment of me, taste in sparing himself—in his choice of the mode. With fright and wariness in his eyes—the look of readiness to go to any depths of self-abasement in gaining his end—he put a tone of manly, bluff, shamefaced contrition into his voice as he said:
“Pardon my breaking in on you this way. I’ve just heard. Is she very ill?”