This is not a question which involves the expenditure of money. A young man's clothing may be worn threadbare, but it can always be clean, and it costs no more to buy a quiet-colored cloth than to buy a big check of black and green or brown and yellow. If you study the matter a little you will find that you can tell the general character of any person by his clothes. Some men are sure to always wear slouchy clothes, half-soiled linen, a bright green neck-tie; others wear highly colored waistcoats; others again are always in the height of fashion—that is, a little in the extreme year after year; and still others make a point of being badly dressed and out of the prevalent style to show that they are not swayed by such silly laws as style. It is easy enough to place all these men in their proper places. And then, finally, you see some young chap whose clothes are clean, who is neither out of the style of the day nor in the height of it, whose clothes may be showing distinct signs of wear, but who seems to fit them pretty well, and to be noticeable in no particular way so far as they are concerned, and in all probability you put him down, if you think of the matter at all, as a man of common-sense, of decency, of self-respect, and good manners.
Then, again, some men sit in their shirt sleeves at home. There is no reason for this. It is merely a queer idea that you are more comfortable in that style of dress. But such men do not realize that their sisters, wives, mothers, naturally lose some of their respect for them, and that they unconsciously lose a good deal of respect for themselves. Certainly these sisters and wives and mothers are the girls and women we think most of, and why do we treat them with a disrespect that we would never think of subjecting strangers to in our own or in their homes? That disrespect to them is a boomerang, a reflector on us ourselves. If you dress quietly and decently and as well as you can, if you keep yourself and your clothes clean, you are more likely to keep morally clean, to think and act in a dignified way, and to treat others with proper respect. Of course there are great men who are slovenly, but they are never great because they are slovenly, and it would not dull their greatness if they kept themselves clean and orderly. It is because they grow careless, and carelessness is never excusable in any one. Think about your clothes, then, and avoid anything that will make you noticeable. That does not mean that one should always be thinking of what to wear, that one should be a dandy and a fop. It simply means that he should be a self-respecting man who tries to be decent.
Postmen sometimes have very lively experiences in the course of their daily rounds. It has often happened that on lonely roads they have had to fight their way against tramps and others who lie in wait to see what they can get that doesn't belong to them, and may be worth having. The most novel experience that has come to notice, however, was in the work of an English postman. It appears that on a recent Sunday a swarm of bees took possession of the village letter-box at Haunton, six miles from Tamworth. There is no collection on Sunday, and on Monday night, when the rural postman essayed to take out the letters, he was compelled to beat a speedy retreat, and no one could approach within twenty yards of the box. The postman avers that that was the liveliest mail he has had to do with in a long while.
BLÜCHER'S PIPE-BEARER.
There is a story told somewhere of an old Indian-fighter, one of the kind that trailed the war parties of the redskins far back in the last century. This veteran loved his pipe, and as the story goes, during one of his exploits the Indians followed his trail by the smell of the tobacco smoke, and finally a well-aimed bullet knocked the glowing bowl from his mouth. Thus warned, he made his escape.
This pipe story does not equal that told of Christian Hennemann, a countryman from Rostock, who fought with Field-Marshal Blücher at Waterloo. Those who are familiar with Blücher's life know of his partiality for a pipe, and even in the heat of battle he never neglected his smoke. As day broke the morning of the memorable battle of Waterloo, Blücher called the hussar Christian Hennemann, and placed him in charge of a box of clay pipes, with the instruction to keep one always ready to hand to him, that he might enjoy a few whiffs during the engagement.
As the morning wore on, Blücher sat on his white charger gravely puffing away. He had reached out his hand for the second time to take the refilled pipe, when an ungenerous cannon-ball dug up the ground near at hand, causing his horse to shy. Blücher hastily handed the pipe to Christian, saying, "Just keep that lighted for a few moments while I drive those rascally Frenchmen back."
The chase was a long one, as history relates, and through the hot summer day the battle waged and men fought and died. When the battle was over, Blücher and Wellington, who were riding over the scene together, happened to pass near where Blücher had first started to chase the enemy. Outlined against the sky a lonely man sat perched on a rock. A bloody rag was bound around his head, and one arm hung in a sling. He was calmly smoking a clay pipe.