Never bound into the drawing-room unannounced, with your hat, overcoat and overshoes on, nor with your umbrella in your hand, especially if it has been raining hard.
Never, particularly if a comparative stranger, hail your host as “Old Cock,” nor grab your hostess’s jeweled hand, whether offered to you or not, as if it were a rope’s end, and you in danger of drowning. Neither, if other guests are present with whom you have no acquaintance, prance around amongst them, poking them in the ribs, slapping them on the back, etc. True breeding is not synonymous with monkey capers and bar-room manners.
Never be icy or contemptuous; but never, on the other hand, be fiery or too familiar. Emulate neither the iceberg nor the volcano; there is a happy medium that can be cultivated to advantage.
Never loll at full length on the sofa, or bestride a chair with your elbows resting on the back, and the soles of your boots plainly visible to your vis-a-vis. Sofas are not beds, nor are chairs vaulting-horses.
Never, even when sitting in your chair, tilt it far back, with your heels resting on the mantel-piece, and your back to the rest of the company present. Are you a gentleman or an orang-outang?
Never, either, keep twisting and squirming about in your chair as if sitting on a hornet’s nest, nor keep crossing and recrossing the legs every second and a half, nor carve your initials on the furniture with your penknife. St. Vitus’ dance is one thing, dignified repose another.
Never, in being introduced to a lady, make a pun on her name, if it is a homely one, or jokingly allude to rouge-pots and whited sepulchers, if she is no longer young, with an air of having resorted to preservative aids. Illogical but intuitive, the feminine mind is swift to imagine and resent an innuendo where perhaps none was intended.
Never, if the lady be young but homely, at once patronizingly remark that, after all, handsome is as handsome does, and you have even known the dowdiest and most unattractive girls make good matches through tact and perseverance. However laudable your intention, there may be a muscular brother inconveniently in the background.
Never attempt to sing or play, even though pressed to do so, if you are absolutely ignorant of both vocal and instrumental music. Effects might, indeed, be produced, but would they be desirable?
Never be so self-conscious as to fancy yourself a cave-bear and other people but field-mice. “True politeness will betray no hoggishness,” as an ancient writer has sagely observed.