I concluded by the time I had come to the end of my books, that to be
a true gentleman my safest course would be to stop in bed for the
rest of my life. By this means only could I hope to avoid every
possible faux pas, every solecism. I should have lived and died a
gentleman. I could have had it engraved upon my tombstone:

"He never in his life committed a single act unbecoming to a
gentleman."

To be a gentleman is not so easy, perhaps, as a fashionable novelist
imagines. One is forced to the conclusion that it is not a question
entirely for the outfitter. My attention was attracted once by a
notice in the window of a West-End emporium, "Gentlemen supplied."

It is to such like Universal Providers that the fashionable novelist
goes for his gentleman. The gentleman is supplied to him complete in
every detail. If the reader be not satisfied, that is the reader's
fault. He is one of those tiresome, discontented customers who does
not know a good article when he has got it.

I was told the other day of the writer of a musical farce (or is it
comedy?) who was most desirous that his leading character should be a
perfect gentleman. During the dress rehearsal, the actor
representing the part had to open his cigarette case and request
another perfect gentleman to help himself. The actor drew forth his
case. It caught the critical eye of the author.

"Good heavens!" he cried, "what do you call that?"

"A cigarette case," answered the actor.