"Good form!" I exclaimed. "That's it! That's what I want! What does 'good
form' mean?"

He laughed. "You can search me," said he. "I could easier tell
you--anything else. It's what everybody recognizes on sight, and nobody
knows how to describe. It's like the difference between a cultivated
'jimson' weed and a wild one."

"Like the difference between Mowbray Langdon and me," I suggested
good-naturedly. "How about my manners?"

"Not so bad," said he. "Not so rotten bad. But--when you're polite, you're
a little too polite; when you're not polite, you--"

"Show where I came from too plainly?" said I. "Speak right out--hit good
and hard. Am I too frank for 'good form'?"

"You needn't bother about that," he assured me. "Say whatever comes into
your head--only, be sure the right sort of thing comes into your head.
Don't talk too much about yourself, for instance. It's good form to think
about yourself all the time; it's bad form to let people see it--in your
talk. Say as little as possible about your business and about what you've
got. Don't be lavish with the I's and the my's."

"That's harder," said I. "I'm a man who has always minded his own business,
and cared for nothing else. What could I talk about, except myself?"

"Blest if I know," replied he. "Where you want to go, the last thing people
mind is their own business--in talk, at least. But you'll get on all right