Never walk, especially if in haste, with your arms folded, nor with your hands in your coat-tail pockets.
Never improvise tooth-picks out of fence splints, and then chew them industriously in public. Tobacco and chewing-gum still assert their claims.
Never expectorate all around you at every step you take, without an instant’s intermission. If you are troubled with bronchitis, remain at home. If the same old drunk persistently lingers, try a B. and S., or a gin fizz, according to your judgment.
Never whistle like a locomotive, nor attempt a Tyrolese jodel, while walking with a lady or ladies on a fashionable promenade.
Never whittle sticks, play on a jewsharp, or essay to catch flies on window-panes in public. Such recreations, innocent in themselves, should only be pursued in the privacy of one’s own apartment.
Never permit the quality or cut of your wearing-apparel to deteriorate, if you have to live on pork and beans to keep up your end in this regard. “Never retrench in your wardrobe expenses, whatever you do,” said old Samuel Pepys. “All the world knows how you appear, but no one need know how you live.” A frequent change of residence might serve to disconcert the tailors, should they prove troublesome.
Never allow your shoes to run down at the heel, nor out at the toes. Nothing is more incongruous than a fine gentleman, in other respects quite the swell, with his foot-leather burst out around the instep, his stocking heels wabbling up and down at every jump, and his bare toes courting the public gaze.
Never hiccough or sneeze without intermission, unless greatly inebriated. In this dilemma, lose no time in drinking yourself sober, or in seeking temporary retirement, if only on a park-bench.
Never let your lower lip hang down on your breast, like a motherless calf’s. “Put up or shut up,” says the Coptic proverb.
Never, on the other hand, screw up your lips under your nose, as though constantly subjected to an overpowering odor. Even a prevailing ecstatic, attar-of-roses haunted expression is in preferable form to this.