One of these success-before-you-wake-to-morrow-morning schools of

business instruction dismisses the fact which has remained true through

three thousand years of change, namely, that there is no short cut to

success, as a myth, and even goes so far as to say that it is almost

impossible to achieve success to-day by working for it. E. H. Harriman

they give as an example of a man who did no work but won success by

smoking cigars while other men built railroads for him, quoting a joking

remark of his to prove a serious point, when, as a matter of fact, Mr.

Harriman was one of the large number of American business men who have

literally worked themselves to death. Foch said that he won the war by

smoking his pipe, but does any one believe that the great commander won

the war by not working? What he meant was that he won the war by

thinking, and the worn face, which seemed almost twice as old when the

conflict was over, showed how hard that work was.

It is so impossible for a false doctrine to stand on its own feet that

the spread-eagle advertisement of this school contradicts itself long

before it gets to the "Sign here and mail to-day" coupon. "The first

time you try to swim," shouts the advertisement, "for instance, you

sink; and the first time you try to ride a bicycle you fall off. But the

ability to do these things was born in you. And shortly you can both

swim and ride. Then you wonder why you could not always do these things.

They seem so absurdly simple." It may be that there are people who have

learned to swim and to ride a bicycle by sitting in a chair and

cultivating certain inherent qualities but we have never heard of them.

Everybody that we ever knew worked and worked hard swimming and riding

before they learned. The only way to learn to do a job is to do it, and

the only way to succeed is to work. Any school or any person who says

that "the most important thing for you to do is not to work, but first

to find the short road to success. After that you may safely work all

you like--but as a matter of fact, you won't have to work very hard," is

a liar and a menace to the country and to business.

But the value of personality is not to be under-estimated. "Nature,"

says Thackeray somewhere in "The Virginians," "has written a letter of

credit upon some men's faces, which is honored almost wherever

presented. Harry Warrington's [Harry Warrington was the hero who brought

about this observation] countenance was so stamped in his youth. His

eyes were so bright, his cheeks so red and healthy, his look so frank

and open, that almost all who beheld him, nay, even those who cheated

him, trusted him." It was the "letter of credit" stamped upon the face

of Roosevelt, pledge of the character which lay behind it, which made

him the idol of the American people.

Personality is hard to analyze and harder still to acquire. The usual

advice given to one who is trying to cultivate a pleasing manner and

address is "Be natural," but this cannot be taken too literally. Most of

us find it perfectly natural to be cross and disagreeable under trying

circumstances. It would be natural for a man to cry out profane words

when a woman grinds down on his corn but it would not be polite. It was

natural for Uriah Heep to wriggle like an eel, but that did not make it

any the less detestable. It was natural, considering the past history of

Germany and the system under which he was educated, for the Kaiser to

want to be lord of the world, but that did not make it any the less

horrible.

Another bromidic piece of advice is "Be perfectly frank and sincere."

But this, too, has its limits. Some people pride themselves on saying

exactly what they think. Usually they are brutal, insensitive, wholly

incapable of sympathetic understanding of any one else, and cursed,

besides, with a colossal vanity. A man may determine to tell nothing but

the truth, but this does not make it necessary for him to tell the whole

truth, especially when it will hurt the feelings or the reputation of

some one else. No man has a right to impose his opinions and prejudices,

his sufferings and agonies, on other people. It is the part of a coward

to whine.

And yet a man must be himself, must be natural and sincere. Roosevelt

could no more have adopted the academic manner of Wilson than Wilson

could have adopted the boyish manner of Roosevelt. Lincoln could no

more have adopted the courtly grace of Washington than Washington could

have adopted the rugged simplicity of Lincoln. Nor would such

transformations be desirable even if they were possible. The world would

be a very dreary place if we were all cut by the same pattern.

A number of years ago in an upstate town in New York there was a shoe

store which had been built up by the engaging personality of the man who

owned it. He had worked his way up from a tiny shoe shop in New Jersey

where, as a boy, he made shoes by hand before there were factories for

the purpose, and he had always kept in close touch with the business

even after he owned a large establishment and had a number of men

working under him. He stayed in the shop, greeted his customers as they

came in, and many times waited on them himself.

When he retired from active business he sold out to a man exactly his

opposite in temperament, as good a man, so far as character went, as

himself, but very quiet and taciturn. A woman who had always patronized

the shop and was a friend of them both came to him soon after the

transfer was made and said, "Now, Mr. Tillis, the reason this place has

prospered so is on account of the personality of Mr. Kilbourne. His

shoes are good but people can get good shoes at other places. They come

here because of Mr. Kilbourne. They like him, and if you are not careful

they will stop coming now that he is gone. You've got to smile and show

them you are glad to see them."

Mr. Tillis felt that the woman was telling the truth. He decided that he

would stay in the shop and greet each customer with a gladsome smile and

make himself generally pleasant and agreeable. The next day he was

fitting a shoe on a woman who was also an old customer and a friend of

both men. He was smiling in his best manner and congratulating himself

that he was doing very well when the woman abruptly took her foot off

the stand. "What are you laughing at?" she demanded.

Some years later he told Mr. Kilbourne about it. "I decided then that

there was no use in me trying to be you. You had been yourself, and I

made up my mind that I'd be myself."

And that is, after all, the only rule that can be given. Be yourself,

but be very sure that it is your best self.

It is personality which permits one man to do a thing that another would

be shot for. What is charming in this man is disgusting in that. What is

a smile with one becomes a smirk with another. What makes one succeed

will cause another to fail. It is personality that opens the doors of

opportunity. It cannot, alone, keep them open, but it is worth a good

deal to get inside.

We were interested to observe the methods used by three young men who

were looking for jobs, not one of whom would probably have succeeded if

he had used the tactics of either of the others.

The first wanted to talk with the biggest executive in a large

organization. He had fought his way through the ranks until he had got

as far as the man's secretary. "Mr. So-and-So does not see people who

want jobs," said that young lady.

"I don't want a job," he prevaricated mildly, "I want to talk to him."

The girl let him in.

"Mr. So-and-So," he said, "I don't want a job. I want advice."

His manner was so ingenuous and charming, his earnestness so glowing,

that the man at the desk listened while he talked, and then talked a

while himself, and ended by giving the young man the position (as well

as the advice) that he wanted. But if he had been less attractive

personally and the older man had been shrewd enough to see through the

ruse (or perhaps he did see through it but made the proper discount for

it) or had been opposed to trick methods, the scheme might not have

worked so well.

The most universal weakness of intellect lies in the part of the brain

which listens to flattery. Very few people like compliments laid on with

a trowel, but no man can resist the honest admiration of another if it

seems sincere. And since it is the sort of thing that one likes almost

above all else he often takes the false coin for the true.

The second young man met the rebuff so familiar to young men looking for

their first job, "We want men with experience."

"That's what everybody says," the boy answered, "but what I want to know

is how we are going to get that experience if you don't give us a

chance."

The older man sympathized, but had no place for the other and told him

so.

"What would you do if you were I?" the young man asked as he turned to

leave. The other grinned. "Why, I'd work for a firm for a week for

nothing," he said, "and show them that they could not get along without

me."

The boy stopped. "All right," he said, "let me work for you a week."

The older man had not expected this but he gave the youngster a chance

and he made good.

The third young man had reached the point of desperation. He had been

out of a job several weeks. He had been trying to get one all that time

and had not succeeded. He walked into the employment bureau of a certain

concern and said, "I want a job. I want a good job. Not some dinky

little place filing letters or picking up chips. If you've got an

executive position where there is plenty of work and plenty of

responsibility, I want it." They asked him a few questions about what he

had been doing and a few more about what he thought he could do, and

ended by giving him a desk and an office.

It would be foolish to advise any one to follow any of these plans. Each

man must work out his own method, all the better if it is an original

one. Most business men like a simple approach without any flourishes.

"It is astonishing," says one man whose income runs to six figures, "how

many things one can get just by asking for them." The best reporter in

America says that he has always found the direct method of approach

better than any other. None is infallible but this has the highest

percentage of success.

So far as personal appearance is concerned--and this is one of the most

important elements in the fashioning of personality--the greatest

variations are not due to intrinsic differences in character, nor to

differences of feature or form, but to the use and disuse of the

bathtub. More sharp than the distinction between labor and capital or

between socialism and despotism is that between the people who bathe

daily and those who go to the tub only on Saturday night or less often.

The people with whom personal cleanliness is a habit find dirt, grime,

and sweat revolting. To them "the great unwashed" are repulsive.

"When you teach a man to bathe," says John Leitch in his book on

"Industrial Democracy," "you do more than merely teach him to cleanse

his body. You introduce him to a new kind of life and create in him a

desire for better living."

The month before he began his wonderful work at Tuskegee, Booker

Washington spent visiting the Negro families in the part of Alabama

where he was to teach. "One of the saddest things I saw during the month

of travel which I have described," he writes in his autobiography, "was

a young man, who had attended some high school, sitting down in a

one-room cabin, with grease on his clothing, filth all around him, and

weeds in the yard and garden, engaged in studying a French grammar."

Farther on he writes, "It has been interesting to note the effect that

the use of the tooth-brush has had in bringing about a higher degree of

civilization among the students. With few exceptions, I have noticed

that, if we can get a student to the point where, when the first or

second tooth-brush disappears, he of his own motion buys another, I have

not been disappointed in the future of that individual. Absolute

cleanliness of the body has been insisted upon from the first."

Cleanliness is an attribute of civilization. We find it amusing to read

that three or four hundred years ago bathing for pleasure was unknown,

that when soap was first invented it was used only for washing clothes,

and that even so late as the Seventeenth Century an author compiling a

book of rules for the gentleman of that day advises him to wash his

hands every day and his face almost as often! In the monasteries bathing

was permitted only to invalids and the very old. Perfume was used

copiously, and filth and squalor abounded. This even in royal circles.

Among the common people conditions were unspeakable.

To-day a gentleman bathes and shaves every day. He keeps his hair

brushed, his finger nails immaculate (or as clean as the kind of work

which he does permits), his linen is always clean and his shoes are

polished. He is not over-fastidious about his clothes, but he has

respect enough for himself as well as for the people among whom he lives

to want to present as agreeable an appearance as possible. "Dress,"

wrote Lord Chesterfield to his son, "is a very foolish thing, and yet it

is a very foolish thing for a man not to be well-dressed, according to

his rank and way of life.... The difference in this case between a man

of sense and a fop is that the fop values himself upon his dress; and

the man of sense laughs at it, and at the same time knows he must not

neglect it."

It is a cheap device for a man to trick himself out with lodge pins and

fraternity symbols, rings, and badges in the hope that they will open

doors for him. Highly ornamental jewelry of any kind is inappropriate.

Not many men can offset a heavy gold watch chain stretched full length

across their bosoms, not many can live down a turquoise ring set with

pearls, and very few can bear the handicap of a bright gold front tooth.

Artists, alone, may gratify their taste for velvet jackets,

Tam-o'-Shanters, and Windsor ties, but the privilege is denied business

men. Eccentricity of dress usually indicates eccentricity of temper, and

we do not want temperamental business men. It is hard enough to get

along with authors and artists and musicians. The business man who is

wise wears conventional clothes of substantial material in conservative

colors. Good sense and good taste demand it.

The time has passed when uncouthness of dress and manner can be taken as

a pledge of honesty and good faith. The President of the United States

to-day is a well-dressed, well-groomed man, and no one thinks any the

less of him for it. Men no longer regard creased trousers, nicely tied

cravats, well-chosen collars, and harmonious color combinations as signs

of sissiness, snobbishness, or weak-mindedness.

Formal dinners and other ceremonious functions require evening dress. It

is the custom, as the Orientals say; and for the sake of other people

present if not for his own, a man should undergo the discomfort, if he

finds it a discomfort, and many men do, of conforming to it. Holiday

attire gives a happy note of festivity which might otherwise be lacking.

It is quite possible to point to a number of men who have succeeded in

business who were wholly indifferent to matters of dress. But it does

not prove anything. Men rise by their strength, not by their weakness.

Some men wait until after they have become rich or famous to become

negligent of their personal appearance. But it is well to remember that

"if Socrates and Aristippus have done aught against custom or good

manner, let not a man think he can do the same: for they obtained this

license by their great and excellent good parts."

A well-dressed man is so comfortably dressed that he is not conscious of

his clothes and so inconspicuously dressed that no one else is conscious

of them.

In a good many instances it is not his own dress which bothers a

business man so much as it is that of some one else--his stenographer,

for instance. Men do not have quite so much opportunity to make

themselves ridiculous as women. Their conventions of dress are stricter,

and, as a rule, they can express their love of color and ornamentation

only in their choice of ties and socks. Girls have practically no

restrictions except what happens to be the style at the moment, and a

young girl untrained in selecting and combining colors and lines, and

making money for the first time in her life, is more likely than not to

make herself look more like a Christmas tree than a lily of the field.

The big department stores which employ hundreds of girls to meet and

serve their customers have settled the problem for themselves by

requiring the girls to wear uniforms. The uniform is very simple; often

a certain color during working hours is prescribed, but the girls are

permitted to choose their own styles. Other places have women who look

after the welfare of the girls and prevent them from laying themselves

open to misunderstanding by the way they dress. Large organizations can

afford to have a special person to take care of such matters, but in a

small office the problem is different.

Of course, a man can always dismiss a girl who dresses foolishly or

carelessly, but this is sneaking away from a problem instead of facing

it. High-class offices have comparatively little trouble this way. In

the first place, they do not attract the frivolous, light-headed, or

"tough" girls; in the second place, if such girls come, the atmosphere

in which they work either makes them conform to the standards of the

office or leave and go somewhere else. If a girl in his office dresses

in a way that he considers inappropriate, a man may tactfully suggest

that something simpler would be more dignified and more in keeping with

business ideals and traditions. But, oh, he must be careful! On no

subject is one so sensitive as on his personal appearance, and women,

perhaps, more so than men.

There is a limit to how far an employer should go in dictating the

manner of his employees' dress. When the head of a big Western

department store declared that he would discharge all the girls who

bobbed their hair, most of us felt that he had gone a bit too far, even

while we saw the logic of his position. While it is the only sensible

way in the world for a woman to wear her hair the majority of people

have not yet come to think so. To the average person, especially to Mrs.

Grundy, who is really the most valuable customer a department store has,

the impression given by bobbed hair is one of frivolity or eccentricity.

The impression given the customer as she enters a store is a most

important item; the head of the store knew it, and therefore he placed

the ban on bobbed hair. Whichever side we take in this particular case

this is true: The business woman should give, like the business man, an

impression of dependability, and she cannot do it if her appearance is

abnormal, or if her mind is divided between how she is looking and what

she is doing.

It is almost funny that we let the faults and mannerisms of other people

affect us to such an extent. They are nothing to us, and yet a man can

work himself into a perfect frenzy of temper merely by looking at or

talking to another who has a fidgety way of moving about, a dainty

manner of using his hands, or a general demean--or that is delicate and

ladylike. Men like what the magazines call "a red-blooded, two-fisted,

he-man." But the world is big enough to accommodate us all whether the

blood in our veins is red or blue, and it is perfectly silly for a man

to throw himself into a rage over some harmless creature who happens to

exasperate him simply because he is alive.

It is an altogether different matter when it is a question of one man

taking liberties with another. Most people object to the physical

nearness of others. It is the thing that makes the New York subways

during the rush hours such a horror. It is not pleasant to have a person

so near that his breath is against your face, and there are not many men

who enjoy being slapped on the back, punched in the ribs, or held fast

by a buttonhole or a coat lapel. A safe rule is never to touch another

person. He may resent it.

The garrulous or impertinent talker is almost as objectionable as the

hail-fellow-well-met, slap-on-the-back fellow. Charles Dickens has a

record of this kind of American in the book which he wrote after his

visit in this country: "Every button in his clothes said, 'Eh, what's

that? Did you speak? Say that again, will you?' He was always wide

awake, always restless; always thirsting for answers; perpetually

seeking and never finding....

"I wore a fur great-coat at that time, and before we were well clear of

the wharf, he questioned me concerning it, and its price, and where I

bought it, and when, and what fur it was, and what it weighed, and what

it cost. Then he took notice of my watch, and asked me what _that_ cost,

and whether it was a French watch, and where I got it, and how I got it,

and whether I bought it or had it given me, and how it went and where

the keyhole was, and when I wound it, every night or every morning, and

whether I ever forgot to wind it at all, and if I did, what then? Where

I had been to last, and where I was going next, and where I was going

after that, and had I seen the President, and what did he say, and what

did I say, and what did he say when I had said that? Eh? Lor' now! Do

tell!"

This sort of curiosity is harmless enough, but exasperating, and so

childish that one hates to rebuke the person who is asking the foolish

questions. There is another kind which is perhaps worse--the man who

asks intrusive questions about how much salary another is getting, how

old he is (men are as sensitive on this subject as women) and so on and

on. It is perfectly legitimate to refuse to answer any question to

which one does not wish to reply. Every man has a right to mental

privacy even when he is denied, as he is in so many modern offices, any

other kind of privacy.

A loud or boisterous person is objectionable. Many times this is through

carelessness, but sometimes, as when a man recounts the story of his

dinner with Mr. Brown, who is a national figure, in a voice so loud that

all the people in the car or room or whatever place he happens to be in,

can hear him, it is deliberate. The careless person is the one who

discusses personalities aloud in elevators, on the train, and in all

manner of public places. Exchanging gossip is a pretty low form of

indoor sport and exchanging it aloud so that everybody can hear makes it

worse than ever. Names should never be mentioned in a conversation in a

place where strangers can overhear, especially if the connection is an

unpleasant one. Private opinions should never be aired in public places

(except from a platform).

The highly argumentative or aggressive person is another common type of

nuisance. He usually raises his voice, thus drowning out the possibility

of interruption, and talks with so much noise and so many vigorous

gestures that he seems to try to make up for his lack of intellect by

an excess of tumult. Arguments have never yet convinced anybody of the

truth, and it is a very unpleasant method to try. Most arguments are

about religion or politics and even if they were settled nothing would

be accomplished. In the Middle Ages men used to debate about the number

of angels that could stand on the point of a pin. Hours and hours were

wasted and learned scholars were brought into the discussion, which was

carried forward as seriously as if it were a debate between the merits

of the Republican and Democratic parties. Suppose they had settled it.

Would it have mattered?

One of the most offensive public plagues is the man who leaves a trail

of untidiness behind him. No book of etiquette, not even a book of

business etiquette, could counsel eating on the streets in spite of the

historic and inspiring example of Mr. Benjamin Franklin walking down the

streets of Philadelphia with a loaf of bread under each arm while he

munched from a third which he held in his hand. One can forgive a man,

however, if he, feeling the need of nourishment, eats a bar of chocolate

if he takes great care to put the wrappings somewhere out of the way. No

man with any civic pride will scatter peanut hulls, cigarette boxes,

chocolate wrappings, raisin boxes, and other debris along the streets,

in the cars, on the stairs, and even on the floors of office buildings.

Garbage cans and waste-baskets were made to take care of these things.

Tidiness is worth more to a business man than most of them realize. In

the first place it gives a favorable impression to a person coming in

from the outside, and, in the second place, it helps those on the inside

to keep things straight. Folders for correspondence, card indexes,

memorandum files and other similar devices are essential to the orderly

transaction of business.

Keeping ashes and scraps of paper off the floor may seem trifles, but

such trifles go far toward making the atmosphere, which is another word

for personality, of an office. Some men have secretaries who take care

of their desks and papers and supervise the janitor who cleans the

floors and windows, but those who do not, find that they can manage

better when they have a place to put things and put them there.

Nothing has more to do with making a gentleman than a courteous and

considerate attitude toward women. In business a man should show

practically the same deference toward a woman that he does in society.

Any man can be polite to a woman he is anxious to please, the girl he

loves, for instance, but it takes a gentleman to be polite to every

woman, especially to those who work for him, those over whom he

exercises authority.

It is unnecessary for a man to rise every time one of the girls in his

office enters his private audience room, but he should always rise to

receive a visitor, whether it is a man or woman, and should ask the

visitor to be seated before he sits down himself. In witheringly hot

weather a man may go without his coat even if his entire office force

consists of girls, but he should never receive a guest in his shirt

sleeves. He should listen deferentially to what the visitor has to say,

but if she becomes too voluble or threatens to stay too long or if there

is other business waiting for him, he may (if he can) cut short her

conversation. When she is ready to go he should rise and conduct her to

the door or to the elevator, as the case may be, and ring the bell for

her. He cannot, of course, do this if his visitors are frequent, if

their calls are about matters of trifling importance, or if he is

working under high pressure.

We once had an English visitor here in America who thought our manners

were outrageously bad, but there was one point on which we won a perfect

score. "Any lady," he said, "may travel alone, from one end of the

United States to the other, and be certain of the most courteous and

considerate treatment everywhere. Nor did I ever once, on any occasion,

anywhere, during my rambles in America, see a woman exposed to the

slightest act of rudeness, incivility, or even inattention." Conditions

have changed since then. Women had not left their homes to go into

offices and factories, but unless we can hold to the standard described

by the Englishman, the change has not been for the better, for any of

the people concerned.

Since the Victorian era our ideas of what constitutes an act of rudeness

have been modified. Then it would have been unthinkable that a woman

should remain standing in a coach while men were seated. Now it is

possible for a man to keep his place while a woman swings from a strap

and defend himself on the grounds that he has worked harder during the

day than she (how he knows is more than we can say), and that he has

just as much right (which is certainly true) as any one else. Yet it is

a gracious and a chivalrous act for a man to offer a woman his place on

a car, and it is very gratifying to see that hundreds of them, even in

the cities, where life goes at its swiftest pace and people live always

in a hurry, surrender their seats in favor of the women who, like

themselves, are going to work. Old people, afflicted people, men and

women who are carrying children in their arms, and other people who

obviously need to sit down are nearly always given precedence over the

rest of us. This is, of course, as it should be.

But the heart of what constitutes courtesy has not changed and never

will. It is exactly what it was on that day nearly four hundred years

ago when Sir Philip Sidney, mortally wounded on the field of Zutphen,

gave his last drop of water to the dying soldier who lay near him and

said, "Thy need is greater than mine."

V

TABLE MANNERS

In the old books of etiquette in the chapter on table manners the

authors used to state that it was not polite to butter your bread with

your thumb, to rub your greasy fingers on the bread you were about to

eat, or to rise from the table with a toothpick in your mouth like a

bird that is about to build her nest. We have never seen any one butter

his bread with his thumb, but----

There are in the United States nearly five million people who can

neither read nor write. We have no statistics but we venture to say

there are as many who eat with their knives. There are people among

us--and they are not all immigrants in the slum districts or Negroes in

the poorer sections of the South--who do not know what a napkin is, who

think the proper way to eat an egg is to hold it in the hand like a

piece of candy, and bite it, the egg having previously been fried on

both sides until it is as stiff and as hard as a piece of bristol board,

who would not recognize a salad if they saw one, and who have never

heard of after-dinner coffee.

Very few of them are people of wealth, but an astonishing number of

successful business men were born into such conditions. They had no

training in how to handle a knife and fork and they probably never read

a book of etiquette, but they had one faculty, which is highly developed

in nearly every person who lifts himself above the crowd, and that is

observation.

In addition to this a young man is very fortunate, especially if his way

of life is cast among people whose manners are different from those to

which he has been accustomed, if he has a friend whom he can consult,

not only about table manners but about matters of graver import as well.

And he should not be embarrassed to ask questions. The disgrace, if

disgrace it could be called, lies only in ignorance.

A number of years ago a young man who was the prospective heir to a

fortune--this charming story is in Charles Dickens's wonderful novel,

"Great Expectations"--went up to London for the express purpose of

learning to be a gentleman. It fell about that almost as soon as he

arrived he was thrown into the company of a delightful youth who had

already attained the minor graces of polite society. Very much in

earnest about what he had set out to do, and blessed besides with a

goodish bit of common sense, he explained his situation to Herbert, for

that was the other boy's name, mentioned the fact that he had been

brought up by a blacksmith in a country place, that he knew practically

nothing of the ways of politeness, and that he would take it as a great

kindness if Herbert would give him a hint whenever he saw him at a loss

or going wrong.

"'With pleasure,' said he, 'though I venture to prophesy that you'll

want very few hints.'"

They went in to dinner together, a regular feast of a dinner it seemed

to the ex-blacksmith's apprentice, and after a while began to talk about

the benefactress who, they believed, had made it possible.

"'Let me introduce the topic,' began Herbert, who had been watching

Pip's table manners for some little time, 'by mentioning that in London

it is not the custom to put the knife in the mouth--for fear of

accidents--and that while the fork is reserved for that use it is not

put further in than necessary. It is scarcely worth mentioning, only

it's as well to do as other people do. Also, the spoon is not generally

used over-hand but under. This has two advantages. You get at your mouth

better (which after all is the object), and you save a good deal of the

attitude of opening oysters on the part of the right elbow.'

"He offered these suggestions (said Pip) in such a lively way, that we

both laughed and I scarcely blushed."

The conversation and the dinner continued and the friendship grew apace.

Presently Herbert broke off to observe that "society as a body does not

expect one to be so strictly conscientious in emptying one's glass, as

to turn it bottom upwards with the rim on one's nose."

"I had been doing this," Pip confessed, "in an excess of attention to

his recital. I thanked him, and apologized. He said, 'Not at all,' and

resumed."

This was written many years ago but neither in life nor in literature is

there a more beautiful example of perfect courtesy than that given by

Herbert Pocket when he took the blacksmith's boy in hand and began his

education in the art of being a gentleman. Not only was he at perfect

ease himself but--and this is the important point--he put the

blacksmith's boy at ease.

It is worth remarking, by way of parenthesis, that Herbert's father was

a gentleman. "It is a principle of his," declared the boy, "that no man

who was not a true gentleman at heart, ever was, since the world began,

a true gentleman in manner. He says, no varnish can hide the grain of

the wood; and that the more varnish you put on, the more the grain will

express itself."

The American table service is not complicated. Any intelligent person

who knows the points covered by Herbert Pocket, who knows that one

should not cut up all of his meat at the same time but mouthful by

mouthful as he needs it, that it is not customary to butter a whole

slice of bread at once nor to plaster cheese over the entire upper

surface of a cracker, can by a dint of watching how other people do it

find his way without embarrassment through even the most elaborate array

of table implements. The easiest way to acquire good table manners (or

good manners of any other kind, as far as that goes) is to form the

habit of observing how the people who manage these things most

gracefully go about it. It is best to begin early. To use one of David

Harum's expressive maxims, "Ev'ry hoss c'n do a thing better 'n' spryer

if he's ben broke to it as a colt."

Eating should be, and, as a matter of fact, is, when one follows his

usual custom, an unconscious process like the mechanical part of reading

or writing. It is only when he is trying to be a bit more formal or

fastidious than is habitual with him that a man gets tangled, so to

speak, in the tines of his fork.

Cooking is one of the fine arts. Poets, painters, sculptors, musicians,

and millionaires have always paid tribute to it as such--and so is

dining. Like a great many other arts it was first developed among royal

circles, and there was a time when the king resented the idea of a

commoner being able to dine with grace and elegance. Since then it has

become democratized, and now there are no restrictions except those

which a man places about himself. And there is no earthly (or heavenly)

reason why a man should not eat in the way which society has established

as correct, and a good many reasons why he should.

Physicians--and this is the strongest argument we know--might advance

their plea on the grounds of good health. In this case we find, as we do

in a number of others, that what good manners declares should be done is

heartily endorsed at the same time by good sense. It is only among

people of blunted sensibilities that nice table manners count for

nothing; for

There's no reproach among swine, d'you see,

For being a bit of a swine.

Among business men it is often perplexing to know whom and when to

invite. Generally speaking, the older man or the man with the superior

position takes the initiative, but there are an infinite number of

exceptions. Generally speaking, also, the man who is resident in a place

entertains the one who is visiting, but there are infinite exceptions to

this as well, especially in the case of traveling salesman. All courtesy

is mutual, and it is almost obligatory upon the salesman who has been

entertained to return the courtesy in kind. Such invitations should be

tendered after a transaction is completed rather than before. The burden

of table courtesy falls upon the man who is selling rather than the one

who is buying, probably because he is the one to whom the obvious profit

accrues.

Social affairs among the wives of business men which grow out of the

business relations of their husbands follow the same rules as almost any

other social affairs. Nearly always it is the wife of the man with the

higher position who issues the first invitation, and it is permissible

for her to invite a woman whom she does not know personally if she is

the wife of a business friend of her husband.

The biggest hindrance to the establishment of good manners among

business men is the everlasting hurry in which they (and all the rest of

us) live. There must first of all be leisure, not perhaps to the extent

advocated by a delightful literary gentleman of having three hours for

lunch every day, but time enough to sit down and relax. Thousands of

business men dash out to lunch--bad manners are at their worst in the

middle of the day--as if they were stopping off at a railroad junction

with twenty minutes to catch a train and had used ten of them checking

baggage. And they do not always do it because they are in a hurry. They

have so thoroughly developed the habit of living in a frenzied rush that

even when they have time to spare they cannot slow down.

Pleasant surroundings are desirable. It is much easier to dine in a

quiet spacious room where the linen is white and the china is thin, the

silver is genuine silver, and the service is irreproachable, than in a

crowded restaurant where thick dishes rattle down on white-tiled tables

from the steaming arms of the flurried waitress, where there is no

linen, but only flimsy paper napkins (which either go fluttering to the

floor or else form themselves into damp wads on the table), where the

patrons eat ravenously and untidily, and where the atmosphere is dense

with the fumes of soup and cigarettes. But luxury in eating is expensive

and most of us must, perforce, go to the white-tiled places. And the art

of dining is not a question of what one has to eat--it may be beans or

truffles--or where one eats it--from a tin bucket or a mahogany

table--it all depends upon _how_; and the man who can eat in a

"hash-house," an "arm-chair joint," a "beanerie," a cafeteria, a

three-minute doughnut stand or any of the other quick-lunch places in as

mannerly a way as if he were dining in a hotel _de luxe_ has, we think,

a pretty fair claim to the title of gentleman.

The responsibility for a dinner lies with the host. If his guest has had

the same social training that he has or is accustomed to better things

he will have comparatively little trouble. All he can do is to give him

the best within his means _without apology_. We like to present

ourselves in the best possible light (it is only human) and for this

reason often carry our friends to places we cannot afford. This imposes

upon them the necessity of returning the dinner in kind, and the vicious

circle swings around, each person in it grinding his teeth with rage but

not able to find his way out. Entertaining is all right so long as it is

a useful adjunct to business, but when it becomes a burden in itself it

is time to call a halt.

Smoking during and immediately after a meal is very pleasing to the man

who likes tobacco, but if he has a guest (man or woman) who objects to

the smell of it he must wait until later. On the other hand if his guest

likes to smoke and he does not he should insist upon his doing so. It is

a trifling thing but politeness consists largely of yielding gracefully

in trifles.

Old-fashioned gentlemen held it discourteous to mention money at table,

but in this degenerate age no subject is taboo except those that would

be taboo in any decent society. Obviously when men meet to talk over

business they cannot leave money out of the discussion. In a number of

firms the executives have lunch together, meeting in a group for perhaps

the only time during the day. It helps immeasurably to cooerdinate

effort, but it sometimes fails to make the lunch hour the restful break

in the middle of the day which it should be. It is generally much more

fun and of much more benefit to swap fish stories and hunting yarns than

to go over the details of the work in the publicity department or to

formulate the plans for handling the Smith and Smith proposition.

Momentous questions should be thrust aside until later, and the talk

should be--well, _talk_, not arguing, quarreling, or scandal-mongering.

The subject does not greatly matter except that it should be something

in which all of the people at the table are interested. Whistler was

once asked what he would do if he were out at dinner and the

conversation turned to the Mexican War, and some one asked him the date

of a certain battle. "Do?" he replied. "Why, I would refuse to associate

with people who could talk of such things at dinner!"

Polite society has always placed a high value on table manners, but it

is only recently that they have come to play so large a part in

business. Some one has said that you cannot mix business and friendship.

It would be nearer the truth to say that you cannot separate them. More

and more it is becoming the habit to transact affairs over the table,

and a very pleasant thing it is, too. Aside from the coziness and warmth

which comes from breaking bread together one is free from the

interruptions and noise of the office, and many a commercial

acquaintance has ripened into a friend and many a business connection

has been cemented into something stronger through the genial influence

of something good to eat and drink. It is, of course, a mistake to

depend too much upon one's social gifts. They are very pleasant and

helpful but the work of the world is done in offices, not on golf links

or in dining rooms. We have little patience with the man who sets his

nose to the grindstone and does not take it away until death comes in

between, but we have just as little with the man who has never touched

the grindstone.

Stories go the rounds of executives who choose their subordinates by

asking them out to lunch and watching the way they eat. One man always

calls for celery and judges his applicant by what he does with it. If he

eats only the tender parts the executive decides that he is extravagant,

at least with other people's money, but if he eats the whole stalk,

green leaves and all, he feels sure that he has before him a man of

economy, common sense, and good judgment! The story does not say what

happens when the young man refuses celery altogether. Another uses

cherry pie as his standard and judges the young man by what he does with

the pits. There are three ways to dispose of them. They may be lowered

from the mouth with the spoon, they may be allowed to drop unaided, or

they may be swallowed. The last course is not recommended. The first is

the only one that will land a job. But tests like this work both ways

and one is rather inclined to congratulate the young men who were turned

down than those who were accepted.

All this aside, an employer does want to know something about the table

manners of an employee who is to meet and dine with his customers. An

excellent salesman may be able to convince a man of good breeding and

wide social training if he tucks his napkin into his bosom, drinks his

soup with a noise, and eats his meat with his knife, but the chances are

against it.

A man who is interested heart and soul in one thing will think in terms

of it, will have it constantly in his mind and on the tip of his tongue.

But the man of one subject, whatever that subject may be, is a bore. It

is right that a man should live in his work, but he must also live

outside of it. One of the most tragic chapters in the history of

American life is the one which tells of the millions and millions of men

who became so immersed in business affairs that they lost sight of

everything else. The four walls of the narrow house which in the end

closes around us all could not more completely have cut them off from

the light of day. It is a long procession and it has not ended--that

line of men passing single file like convicts down the long gray vaults

of business, business, business, with never a thought for the stars or

the moon or books or trees or flowers or music or life or love--nothing

but what casts a shadow over that dismal corridor.

These are dead men with no thought

Of things that are not sold or bought.

* * * * *

In their bodies there is breath,

But their souls are steeped in death.

It is not a cheerful picture to contemplate (and it seems a good long

way away from table manners), but the men who form it are more to be

pitied than blamed. They are blind.

VI

TELEPHONES AND FRONT DOORS

"If the outside of a place is not all right," says a man who spends the

greater part of his time visiting business houses and talking with

business men, "the chances are that it is not worth while to go inside."

There are three ways of getting inside: by letter (which has a chapter

to itself), by the front door, and by telephone. And there are more

complaints against the telephone way than either or both the others,

which is perfectly natural, since it is the most difficult to manage. In

the first place, it requires good behavior from three people at the same

time, and that is a good deal to expect. Secondly, they cannot see one

another--they are like blind people talking together--and no one of them

can do his part unless the other two do theirs. In the third place, the

instrument is a lifeless thing, and when something goes wrong with it it

rouses the helpless fury inspired by all inanimate objects which

interfere with our comfort--like intermittent alarm clocks, collar

buttons that roll under the furniture, and flivvers that go dead without

reason in the middle of country roads. In each case whatever one does

has no effect. The alarm clock continues to ring (unless one gets out of

bed to shut it off, which is worse than letting it ring), the collar

button remains hid in the darkest part of the room, the flivver remains

stuck in the muddiest part of the road, and the telephone is worst of

all, for the source of the trouble is usually several miles away and

there is no means of getting at it.

The telephone is a nuisance--no one denies it--but it is a necessity

also--no one denies that, either--and one of the greatest conveniences

in an age of great conveniences. Some of the disagreeable features

connected with it cannot be done away with but must be accepted with as

much tranquility as we can master, like the terrific noise which an

aeroplane makes or the trail of smoke and cinders which a railway train

leaves behind. The one who is calling, for instance, cannot know that he

is the tenth or eleventh person who has called the man at the other end

of the wire in rapid succession, that his desk is piled high with

correspondence which must be looked over, signed, and sent out before

noon, that the advertising department is waiting for him to O. K. their

plans for a campaign which should have been launched the week before,

that an important visitor is sitting in the library growing more

impatient every minute, and that his temper has been filed down to the

quick by an assortment of petty worries. (Of course, no office should be

run like this, but it sometimes happens in the best of them.)

Some one has said that we are all like islands shouting at each other

across a sea of misunderstanding, and this was long before telephones

were thought of. It is hard enough to make other people understand what

we mean, even with the help of facial expression and gestures, and over

the wire the difficulty is increased a hundred fold. For telephoning

rests upon a delicate adjustment between human beings by means of a

mechanical apparatus, and it takes clear thinking, patience, and

courtesy to bring it about.

The telephone company began its career some few years ago unhampered by

the traditions to which the earlier corporations were slave, the old

"public be damned" idea. Their arbitrary methods had brought them to

grief, and the new concern, with a commendable regard for the lessons

taught by the experience of others, inaugurated a policy of usefulness,

service, and courtesy. The inside history of the telephone is one of

constant watchfulness, careful management, and continuous improvement;

and every improvement has meant better service to the public. (We are

not trying to advertise the telephone company. We realize that it has

been guilty, like every other business, of manifold sins.)

Even the fact that there is a telephone girl instead of a telephone boy

is due to the alertness and good business sense of the company. To put a

boy before a switchboard and expect him not to pull it apart to see how

it was made; or to place him in a position to entertain himself by

connecting the wrong parties and listening to the impolite names they

called each other and expect him not to do it, would be expecting the

laws of nature to reverse themselves. The telephone company tried

it--for a while. They discovered, besides, that a boy will not "take"

what a girl will. It makes no difference what goes wrong with a

connection, the subscriber blames the operator when many times the

operator, especially the one he is talking to, has had nothing to do

with it. The girls have learned to hold their tempers (not always, but

most of the time), but when boys had charge of the switchboards and the

man at the end of the wire yelled, "You cut me off!" and the youngster

had not, he denied it hotly: "You're a liar! I didn't!" The subscriber

would not stand for this, angry words flew back and forth, and more than

once the indignant young operator located the subscriber (not a very

difficult thing for him to do) and went around to settle things in

person. Words were not always the only weapons used.

If this had continued the telephone would never have become a public

utility. People would have looked upon it as an ingenious device but not

of universal practical value. As it is, good salesmanship and efficient

service first elevated a plaything to a luxury and then reduced the

luxury to a necessity. And it was possible not only because the

mechanism itself is a miraculous thing but because it has had back of it

an intelligent human organization working together as a unit.

We say this deliberately, knowing that the reader will think of the

times when the trouble he has had in getting the number he wanted has

made him think there was not a thimbleful of intelligence among all of

the people associated with the entire telephone company. But considering

the body of employees as a whole the standard of courteous and competent

service is extraordinarily high. The public is impatient and prone to

remember bad connections instead of good ones. It is ignorant also and

has very small conception of what a girl at central is doing. And it is

quick to blame her for faults of its own.

One of the worst features of telephone service is the fact that when one

is angry or exasperated he seldom quarrels with the right person. Some

time ago a man was waked in the middle of the night by the ringing of

the telephone bell. He got out of bed to answer it and discovered that

the man was trying to get another number. He went back to bed and to

sleep. The telephone bell rang again, and again he got out of bed to

answer it. It was the same man trying to get the same number. He went to

bed and back to sleep. The telephone bell rang the third time, he got

out of bed again and answered it again and found that it was still the

same man trying to get the same number! "I wasn't very polite the third

time," he confessed when he told about it. But the poor fellow at the

other end of the wire probably had just as touching a story to tell, for

unless it had been very important for him to get the number he would

hardly have been so persistent. The girl at the switchboard may have had

a story of her own, but what it was is one of those things which, as

Lord Dundreary used to say, nobody can find out.

The girls who enter the service of the New York Telephone Company (and

the same thing is true in the other branches of the telephone service,

especially in big cities where there are large groups to work with) are

carefully selected by an employment bureau and sent to a school where

they are thoroughly grounded in the mechanical part of their work and

the ideals for which the company stands. They are not placed on a

regular switchboard until they have proved themselves efficient on the

dummy switchboard, and then it is with instructions to be courteous

though the heavens fall (though they do not express it exactly that

way). "It is the best place in the world to learn self-control," one of

the operators declares, and any one who has ever watched them at work

will add, "Concentration, also." One of the most remarkable sights in

New York is a central exchange where a hundred or more girls are working

at lightning speed, undisturbed by the low murmur around them, intent

only on the switchboard in front of them, making something like five

hundred connections a minute.

They are a wonderfully level-headed group, these telephone girls,

wonderfully unlike their clinging-vine Victorian grandmothers. They do

not know how to cling. If a man telephones that he has been shot, the

girl who receives the call does not faint. She sends him a doctor

instead and takes the next call almost without the loss of a second. If

a woman wants a policeman to get some burglars out of the house, she

sends her one; if some one telephones that a house is burning, she calls

out the fire department--and goes straight on with her work. Now and

then something spectacular happens to bring the splendid courage of the

girls at the switchboards to the attention of the public, such as the

magnificent service they gave from the exchange located a few feet from

Wall Street on the day of the explosion, but ordinarily it passes, like

most of the other good things in life, without comment.

The New York Telephone Company tries to keep its girls healthy and

happy. At regular intervals they are given rest periods. Attractive

rooms are prepared for them, tastefully furnished, well-lighted, and

filled with comfortable chairs, good books, and magazines. Substantial

meals are supplied in the middle of the day at a nominal charge. Special

entertainments are planned from time to time, and best of all, the play

time is kept absolutely distinct from the work time, a condition which

makes for happiness as well as usefulness.

The girls are not perfect, they are not infallible. And they are only a

third part of a telephone call. They work under difficulties at a task

which is not an easy one, and their efficiency does not rest with them

alone but with the people whom they serve as well.

A telephone call begins with the subscriber. Very few people understand

the intricate system of cable and dynamos, vacuum tubes, coil racks,

storage batteries, transmitters and generators which enable them to talk

from a distance, and a good many could not understand them even if they

were explained. Fortunately it is not necessary that they should. The

subscriber's part is very simple.

He should first make sure that he is calling the right number. In New

York City alone, forty-eight thousand wrong numbers are asked for every

day by subscribers who have not consulted the telephone directory first,

or who have unconsciously transposed the digits in a number. For

example, a number such as 6454 can easily be changed to 6544. The

telephone directory is a safe guide, much more so than an old letter or

bill head or an uncertain memory. Information may be called if the

number is not in the directory, but one should be definite even with

her. She cannot supply the number of Mr. What-you-may-call-it or of Mr.

Thing-um-a-bob or of Mr. Smith who lives down near the railroad station,

and she cannot give the telephone number of a house which has no

telephone in it. She has no right to answer irrelevant questions; is, in

fact, prohibited from doing so. Her business is to furnish numbers and

she cannot do it efficiently if she is expected also to explain why a

cat has whiskers, how to preserve string beans by drying them, what time

it is, what time the train leaves for Wakefield, or what kind of

connection can be made at Jones's Junction.

In calling a number the name of the exchange should be given first. The

number itself should be called with a slight pause between the hundreds

and the tens, thus, "Watkins--pause--five, nine--pause--hundred" for

"Watkins 5900" or "Murray Hill--pause--four, two--pause--six, three" for

"Murray Hill 4263." The reason for this is that the switchboard before

which the operator sits is honeycombed with tiny holes arranged in

sections of one hundred each. Each section is numbered and each of the

holes within it is the termination of a subscriber's line. In locating

"Watkins 5900" the girl first finds the section labelled "59" and then

the "00" hole in that section, and if the "59" is given first she has

found it by the time the subscriber has finished calling the number.

The number should be pronounced slowly and distinctly.

When the operator repeats it the subscriber should acknowledge it, and

if she repeats it incorrectly, should stop her and give her the number

again. And he should always remember, however difficult it may be to

make her understand, that he is talking to a girl, a human being, and

that the chances are ten to one that the poor connection is not her

fault.

To recall the operator in case the wrong person is connected it is only

necessary to move the receiver hook slowly up and down. She may not be

able to attend to the recall at once but jiggling the hook angrily up

and down will not get her any sooner. In fact, the more furious the

subscriber becomes the less the girl knows about it, for the tiny signal

light fails to register except when the hook is moved slowly; or if the

switchboard is one where the operator is signalled by a little disk

which falls over a blank space the disk fails to move down but remains

quivering almost imperceptibly in its usual position.

After he has placed a call a man should wait at the telephone or near it

until the connection is made. Too many men have a way of giving their

secretaries a number to send through and then wandering off somewhere

out of sight so that when the person is finally connected he has to wait

several minutes while the secretary locates the man who started the

call. It is the acme of discourtesy to keep any one waiting in this

manner. It implies that your time is much more valuable than his, which

may be true, but it is hardly gracious to shout it in so brazen a

fashion.

It has been estimated that in New York City alone, more than a full

business year is lost over the telephone every day between sunrise and

sunset. There are 3,800,000 completed connections made every day. Out of

each hundred, six show a delay of a minute or more before the person

called answers. In each day this amounts to a delay of 228,000

connections. Two hundred and twenty-eight thousand minutes (and

sometimes the delay amounts to much more than a minute) is the

equivalent of 475 days of eight hours each, or as the gentleman who

compiled these interesting statistics has it, a business year and a

third with all the Sundays and holidays intact. In the course of a year

it amounts to more than all the business days that have elapsed since

Columbus discovered America!

It may be argued that we would be better off if we lost more than a year

every day and did all our work at more leisurely pace. This may be, but

the time to rest is not when the telephone bell is ringing.

The telephone on a business man's desk should always be facing him and

it should not be tricked out with any of the patent devices except those

sanctioned by the company. Most of them lessen instead of increase

efficiency. A woman in her home where calls are infrequent may hide her

telephone behind a lacquered screen or cover it with pink taffeta

ruffles, but in a business office it is best to make no attempts to

beautify it. It is when it is unadorned that the ugly little instrument

gives its best service.

There should always be a pad and pencil at hand so that the message (if

there is one) can be taken down without delay. The person at the other

end probably has not time (and certainly has not inclination) to wait

until you have fumbled through the papers on your desk and the rubbish

in the drawers to locate something to write on and something to write

with.

"Hello" is a useless and obsolescent form of response in business

offices. The name of the firm, of the department, or of the man

himself, or of all three, according to circumstances, should be given.

When there is a private operator to take care of the calls she answers

with the name of the firm, Blank and Blank. If the person at the other

end of the wire says, "I want the Advertising department," she connects

them and the man there answers with "Advertising department." The other

then may ask for the manager, in which case the manager answers with his

name. It is easy to grow impatient under all these relays, but a

complicated connection involving half a dozen people before the right

one is reached can be accomplished in less than a minute if each person

sends it straight through without stopping to exchange a number of

"Helloes" like a group of Swiss yodelers, or to ask a lot of unnecessary

questions.

It is not necessary to scream over the telephone. The mouth should be

held close to the transmitter and the words should be spoken carefully.

In an open office where there are no partitions between the desks one

should take especial pains to keep his voice modulated. One person

angrily spluttering over the telephone can paralyze the work of all the

people within a radius of fifty feet. If it were a necessary evil we

could make ourselves grow accustomed to it. But it is not. And there is

already enough unavoidable wear and tear during the course of a business

day without adding this.

"_Hello, what do you want?_" is no way to answer a call. No decent

person would speak even to a beggar at his door in this way and the

visitor over the telephone, whoever he is, is entitled to a cordial

greeting. _The voice with the smile wins._

An amusing story is told of a man in Washington who was waked one

evening about eleven o'clock by the telephone bell. At first he swore

that he would not answer it but his wife insisted that it might be

something very important, and finally, outraged and angry, he blundered

through the dark across the room and into the hall, jerked down the

receiver and yelled, "Hello!" His wife, who was listening tensely for

whatever ill news might be forthcoming, was perfectly amazed to hear him

saying in the next breath, in the most dulcet tones he had ever used,

"Oh, how do you do, I'm _so_ glad you called. Oh, delightful. Charmed.

I'm sure she will be, too. Thank you. Yes, indeed. So good of you.

_Good_-bye." It was the wife of the President of the United States

asking him and his wife to dinner at the White House.

If the person calling is given the wrong department he should be

courteously transferred to the right one. Courteously, and not with a

brusque, "You've got the wrong party" or "I'm not the man you want" but

with "Just a minute, please, and I'll give you Mr. Miller."

The time when people are rudest over the telephone is when some one

breaks in on the wire. It might be just as well to remember that people

do not interrupt intentionally, and the intruder is probably as

disconcerted as the man he has interrupted. If he had inadvertently

opened the wrong door in a business office the man inside would not have

yelled, "Get out of here," but over the telephone he will shriek, "Get

off the wire" in a tone he would hardly use to drive the cow out of a

cabbage patch.

In an effort to secure better manners among their subscribers the

telephone company has asked them to try to visualize the person at the

other end of the wire and to imagine that they are talking face to face.

Many times a man will say things over the telephone--rude, profane,

angry, insulting things, which he would not dream of saying if he were

actually before the man he is talking to. And to make it worse he is

often so angry that he does not give the other a chance to explain his

side of it, at least not until he has said all that he has to say, and

even then he not infrequently slams the receiver down on the hook as

soon as he has finished!

Listening on a wire passes over from the field of courtesy into that of

ethics. On party lines in the country it is not considered a heinous

offense to eavesdrop over the telephone, but the conversation there is

for the most part harmless neighborhood gossip and it does not matter

greatly who hears it. In business it is different. But it is practically

impossible for any one except the operator to overhear a conversation

except by accident, and it is a misdemeanor punishable by law for her to

give a message to any one other than the person for whom it was

intended.

In every office there should be a large enough mechanical equipment

manned by an efficient staff to take care of the telephone traffic

without delay. "The line is busy" given in answer to a call three or

four times will send the person who is calling to some other place to

have his wants looked after.

Few places appreciate the tremendous volume of business that comes in by

way of telephone or the possibilities which it offers to increase

business opportunities. They are as short-sighted as the department

store which, a good many years ago, when telephones were new, had them

installed but took them out after a few weeks because the clerks were

kept so busy taking orders over them that they did not have time to

attend to the customers who came into the store!

Another important vantage point which, like the telephone, suffers from

neglect is the reception desk. Millions of dollars' worth of business is

lost every year and perfect sandstorms and cyclones of animosity are

generated because business men have not yet learned the great value of

having the right kind of person to receive visitors. To the strangers

who come--and among the idlers and swindlers and beggars who assail

every successful business house are potential good friends and

customers--this person represents the firm,--is, for the time being, the

firm itself.

It is very childish for a man to turn away from a reception desk because

he does not like the manner of the person behind it, but business men,

sensible ones at that, do it every day. Pleasant connections of years'

standing are sometimes broken off and valuable business propositions are

carried to rival concerns because of indifferent or insolent treatment

at the front door. Only a short time ago an advertising agency lost a

contract for which it had been working two years on account of the way

the girl at the door received the man who came to place it. He dropped

in without previous appointment and was met by a blonde young lady with

highly tinted cheeks who tilted herself forward on the heels of her

French pumps and pertly inquired what he wanted. He told her. "Mr. Hunt

isn't in." "When will he be back?" "I don't know," and she swung around

on the impossible heels. The man deliberated a moment and then swung

around on his heels (which were very flat and sensible) and carried the

contract to another agency. Instances of this kind might be multiplied.

Some business men would have persisted until they got what they wanted

from the young lady. Others would have angrily reported her to the head

of her office, but the majority would have acted as this man did.

Most men (and women), whether they are in business or not, do not

underestimate their own importance and they like to feel that the rest

of the world does not either. They do not like to be kept waiting; they

like to be received with a nice deference, not haughtily; they do not

like to be sent to the wrong department; and they love (and so do we

all) talking to important people. Realizing this, banks and trust

companies and other big organizations have had to appoint nearly as many

vice-presidents as there were second-lieutenants during the war to take

care of their self-important visitors. Even those whose time is not

worth ten cents (a number of them are women) like to be treated as if it

were worth a great deal. It is, for the most part, an innocent desire

which does no one any special harm, and any business that sets out to

serve the public (and there is no other kind) has to take into account

all the caprices of human vanity. We cannot get away from it. Benjamin

Franklin placed humility among the virtues he wished to cultivate, but

after a time declared it impossible. "For," he said, "if I overcame

pride I would be proud of my humility."

Courtesy is the first requirement of the business host or hostess and

after that, intelligence. Some business houses make the mistake of

putting back of the reception desk a girl who has proved herself too

dull-witted to serve anywhere else. The smiling idiot with which this

country (and others) so abounds may be harmless and even useful if she

is kept busy behind the lines, but, placed out where she is a buffer

between the house and the outside world, she is a positive affliction.

She may be pleasant enough, but the caller who comes for information and

can get nothing but a smile will go away feeling about as cheerful as if

he had stuck his hand into a jar of honey when he was a mile or so away

from soap, water, and towel.

A litter of office boys sprawling untidily over the desks and chairs in

the reception room is as bad, and a snappy young lady of the "Now see

here, kid" variety is worse.

The position is not an easy one, especially in places where there is a

constant influx of miscellaneous callers, and it is hardly fair to ask a

young girl to fill it. In England they use elderly men and in a number

of offices over here, too. Their age and manner automatically protect

them (and incidentally their firms) from many undesirables that a boy or

girl in the same position would have considerable difficulty in

handling. And they lend the place an air of dignity and reserve quite

impossible with a youngster.

In some offices, especially in those where large amounts of money are

stored or handled, there are door men in uniform and often plain clothes

huskies near the entrances to protect the people (and the money) on the

inside from cranks and crooks and criminals. In others, a physician's

office, for instance, or any small office where the people who are

likely to come are of the gentler sort, a young girl with a pleasing

manner will do just as well as and perhaps better than any one else. In

big companies where there are many departments, it is customary to

maintain a regular bureau of information to which the caller who is not

sure whom or what he wants is first directed, but the majority of

businesses have only one person who is delegated to receive the people

who come and either direct them to the person they want to see or turn

them aside.

Most of them must be turned aside. If the stage managers in New York

interviewed all the girls who want to see them, they would have no time

left for anything else, and the same thing is true of nearly every man

who is prominent in business or in some other way. (Charlie Chaplin

received 73,000 letters during the first three days he was in England.

Suppose he had personally read each of them!) Hundreds of people must be

turned away, but every person who approaches a firm either to get

something from it or to give something to it has a right to attention.

Men are in business to work, not to entertain, and they must protect

themselves. But the people who are turned away must be turned away

courteously, and the business house which has found some one who can do

it has cause to rise and give thanks.

VII

TRAVELING AND SELLING

The etiquette of traveling includes very few points not covered by the

general laws of good behavior. Keeping one's place in line before the

ticket window, having money ready and moving aside as quickly as

possible instead of lingering to converse with the ticket-seller about

train schedules and divers other interesting subjects are primary rules.

It is permissible to make sure that the train is the right one before

getting on it, but it is unnecessary to do it more than half a dozen

times. When the sign over the gate says "Train for Bellevue" it probably

_is_ the train for Bellevue, and when the guard at the gate repeats that

it is the train for Bellevue the chances are that he is telling the

truth.

An experienced traveler usually carries very little baggage. A lot of

suitcases and grips are bothersome, not only to the one who has charge

of them, but also to those who are cramped into small quarters because

of them. A traveler may make himself as comfortable as he likes so long

as it is not at the expense of the other passengers. If they object to

an open window the window must stay down. Lounging over a seat is bad

form, especially if there is some one else in it. So is prowling from

one end of the car to the other. Besides, it makes some people nervous.

Snoring is impolite and so is talking in one's sleep, but they are

beyond remedy. Talking with the person in the berth above or below is

not, however, and is much more disturbing than the noise of the train.

Forgetting the number of one's berth and blundering into the wrong place

is a serious breach of good manners in a sleeping car, and it is

extremely severe on timid persons who have gone to bed with visions

before their minds of the man who was murdered in lower ten and the

woman who brought her husband's corpse from Florida in the same berth

with her.

Among men, "picking up" acquaintances on a train or boat is allowable if

it comes about in a natural way, but there are men who object to it.

Many business men do not discontinue their work because they are

traveling. Portable typewriters, secretaries, the telegraph and other

means of swift communication have made it possible for them to

accomplish almost as much as if they were in the office back home. Such

men do not like to be interrupted, and if a garrulous or an intrusive

person approaches it is within the bounds of courtesy to turn him aside.

Generally, however, there is a comradery of the road, a sort of good

fellowship among voyagers which lets down ordinary bars, and the men who

like to rest as they travel find it highly diverting and interesting to

talk with other men from various parts of the country. This holds true

in hotels, especially in the commercial hotels, where traveling men

foregather to meet their customers and transact their business, and in

hotels in small places where the possibilities for amusement are limited

and the people have to depend on one another for entertainment. But

there are limits. No man should ever thrust himself upon another and it

is almost an iron clad rule that he should never "pick up" women

acquaintances when traveling. It is permissible to talk with them, but

not to annoy them with personal attentions nor to place them under

obligation by paying their bills. If a man and a woman who are traveling

on the same train fall into conversation and go into the dining car

together, each one should pay his or her own check, or if he insists

upon paying at the table she should insist upon settling afterwards. In

hotels also this is essentially true.

Hotels are judged more by the people who come to them than by anything

else. The guests indicate the quality of the service, and for this

reason, most hotels prefer that they be gentlemen. There is an

atmosphere about a first-class hotel that frightens away second-rate

people. Most places have standards and many a man has been turned away

even when there was an empty room because the management did not like

his looks.

Tipping is one of the most vexatious petty problems with which a

traveler is confronted. It is an undemocratic custom which every

sensible man deplores but sees no way around. Waiters, porters, and

other functionaries who are in positions to receive tips draw very small

salaries, if any. They depend upon the generosity of the public they

serve. The system may be all wrong (we believe it is) but it means bread

and butter to those who live by it, and it is only just, as matters are

now arranged, for the traveler to pay. It is foolish to tip

extravagantly or to tip every pirate who performs even the most trifling

service, but a small fee, especially if the service has been good, is a

courtesy not to be forgotten.

Tipping originally grew out of kindness. The knight who had received

special attention at the hands of his squire expressed his gratitude by

a special reward. The word "gratuity" itself indicates that the little

gift was once simply a spontaneous act of thoughtfulness. It has

degenerated into a perfunctory habit, but it should not be so. Excellent

service deserves a recompense just as slip-shod service does not. And no

one has a right to spoil a waiter (or any one else) by tipping him for

inefficient work. In hotels and restaurants the standard fee is ten per

cent of the bill.

Regular travelling of any kind even under favorable circumstances is a

great wear and tear on the disposition. Commuters who go in and out of

town every day are a notoriously hag-ridden lot, and the men who go on

the road are not much better. But there is one enormous difference. It

is the privilege of the commuter to growl as much as he likes about the

discomforts of the road and the stupidity of the men who make up the

time tables, but travelling men--we are speaking of salesmen

especially--can never indulge in the luxury of a grouch. One of the

biggest parts of his job is to keep cheerful all the time and that in

itself is no small task. (Try it and see.) A farmer can wear a frown as

heavy as a summer thunder cloud and the potatoes will grow just the

same; a mechanic can swear at the automobile he is putting into shape

(a very impolite thing to do even when there is no one but the machine

to hear), and the bolts and screws will hold just as fast; a lawyer can

knit his brows over his brief case and come to his solution just as

quickly as if he sat grinning at it, but the salesman must smile, smile,

smile. The season may be dull, the crops may be bad, there may be

strikes, lockouts, depressions and deflations, unemployment--it makes no

difference--he must keep cheerful. It is the courtesy of salesmanship,

and it is this quality more than any other that makes selling a young

man's job--we do not mean in years, but in spirit--an old one could not

stand it.

In the good old days when the country was young and everybody, from all

accounts we can gather, was happy, salesmen in the present sense of the

term were almost unknown. There were peddlers, characters as picturesque

as gipsies, who travelled about the country preying chiefly on the

farmers. Often they spent the night--hotel accommodations were few and

houses were far apart--and entertained the family with lively tales of

life on the road. Next morning they gave the children trifling presents,

swindled the farmer out of several dollars and made themselves generally

agreeable. The farmer took it all in good part and looked forward with

pleasure to the next visit. The peddlers came in pairs then, like

snakes, but they were for the most part welcome and there was genuine

regret when they became things of the past like top-buggies and Prince

Albert coats.

After the peddler came the drummer, a rough, noisy chap, as his name

indicates, harmless enough, but economically not much more significant

than the peddler. He stayed in the business district where he was

tolerated with good-natured indulgence. He was less objectionable than

the man who followed him, the agent. He was (and is) a house-to-house

and office-to-office canvasser and a general nuisance. He sold

everything from books to life insurance, from patent potato peelers to

opera glasses. He still survives, but not in large numbers, for his

work, like that of the peddler and the drummer, has been swallowed up by

the salesman.

The rewards which modern salesmanship holds out to those who succeed at

it are so large that the field has attracted all kinds of men, highly

efficient ones who love the game for its own sake, grossly incompetent

ones who, having failed at something else, have decided to try this, and

adventurers who believe they see in it a chance to get rich quick. The

teachers of salesmanship tell us that we are all selling something,

even when there is no visible product. The worker, according to them, is

selling his services just as the salesman is selling goods. It may be

true, but we all could not (and it is a blessing) go out and sell things

in the ordinary sense in which we use the word. Some of us have to be

producers. But the salesman's work is important. We do not discredit it.

Salesmanship is built on faith. A man must believe in his product and

then must make other people believe in it as firmly as he does. So

devoted are some salesmen to their work that it is difficult to tell

whether they consider their calling a trade, a profession, a science, or

a religion. Sometimes it is all four. Sometimes it goes beyond them and

becomes a kind of mesmerism in which the salesman uses a sort of

hypnotic process (which is simply the result of being over-anxious to

sell) to persuade the prospect that he cannot wait another day before

buying the particular article that the salesman is distributing. The

article may be stocks and bonds, wash cloths, soap, or hair nets. It

makes no difference, but he must be filled with enthusiasm and must be

able to pass it along. And this very virtue which is the foundation of

successful salesmanship is likely to lead the salesman into gross

rudeness. For the man who is selling is so eager and so earnest that he

forgets that the man who is buying may have his own ideas on the

subject.

The first step in salesmanship is to acquire a thorough knowledge of the

product. The next is to gain access to the man who is to buy it. This is

not always easy. Business men have been annoyed so much by agents that

they have had to erect barriers, in many instances almost impenetrable

ones. It is especially difficult in big cities where the pressure is

heavy, but most worth while business men have learned the value of

contact with the world outside and are willing to give almost any man an

interview if he can show a valid reason why he should have it. Whether

he gets a second interview or not depends upon how he handled the first

one.

There are many ways of getting into an office. A salesman usually stands

a much better chance if he writes ahead for an appointment. It is much

more courteous to ask a man when he wants to see you than to drop in on

him casually and trust to luck that the time is not inopportune. Some

salesmen are afraid to write because they think the knowledge of what

they have to sell will prejudice the prospect against it. At the same

time they feel that if they can only get a chance to talk to him a few

minutes they can over-ride the prejudice. A salesman may come into an

office without letting the man know what his purpose is (though it is

best to begin with cards on the table) but he will not come in (unless

he is a crook) under false pretenses.

The friends of a salesman can sometimes be very useful to him in

presenting him to valuable prospects, and when they feel that the

meeting will result in mutual benefit they are glad to do it. Sometimes

the friend will give a letter or a card of introduction. Sometimes he

will telephone or speak for an appointment. It is best when these come

unsolicited, though it is permissible to ask for them. No man should

depend upon the help of his friends. A salesman should be able to stand

on his own feet, and if he and his product together do not form a strong

enough combination to break down all obstructions there is something

wrong with one or the other of them.