Never fail to keep your nose clean. If you have no handkerchief, use your coat-tail.
Never cultivate a broad, teeth-husking smile, unless your ivories are in good order. Tobacco-stained fangs are at an especial disadvantage in this form.
Never fail to cleanse the teeth at least once a week. A tooth-brush is best.
Never wear your hat in church, in a boudoir, nor at a marriage or burial service; never, on the other hand, take it off when overtaken by a blizzard or a cyclone. If neither the blizzard nor the cyclone does that much for you, you may consider yourself fortunate.
Never doff your hat nor make your bow indiscriminately. A Cyrus Field, for instance, would be justified in expecting greater courtesy than would be accorded to a Jesse James; though, if cornered by one of the latter type on his own stamping-ground, it would doubtless be well not to slight him too conspicuously. Be diplomatic.
Never fail to cultivate an off-hand judgment of men and women who are strangers to you. A man with a head like a monkey’s is not necessarily a savant; nor are putty-like faces, with idiotic lips and China-blue eyes, in women, necessarily Elizabeth Cady Stantonesque in intellectual scope and oratorical brilliancy. You would scarcely mistake Red Leary for Herbert Spencer.
Never carry a lighted cigar into a millinery store or powder-magazine.
Never be over servile to good clothes for themselves alone. The professional thief who lost his life in a double tragedy in Sixth avenue not long ago, was one of the best dressed men in New York.
Never, on the other hand venture to indiscriminately despise slovenly dress in men or women. Lady Burdette-Coutts is said to occasionally slouch around London like a charwoman just for the fun of the thing; good old Steve Girard was wont to dress like a music-master in distress; and some greasy, old, garlic-smelling tatterdemalion at your elbow may be one of the most successful pawnbrokers of the Hebraic persuasion.
Never burst, without notice, into any one’s private apartment like a shot out of a gun. Even your excuse that you want to borrow your car-fare may not be mollifying, and people have nerves.