to your _vis-a-vis_. Sofas are not beds, nor are chairs vaulting-horses. Never, even when sitting in your chair, tilt it far back, with your heels resting on the mantel-piece, and your back to the rest of the company present. Are you a gentleman or an orang-outang? Never, either, keep twisting and squirming about in your chair as if sitting on a hornet’s nest, nor keep crossing and recrossing the legs every second and a half, nor carve your initials on the furniture with your penknife. St. Vitus’ dance is one thing, dignified repose another. Never, in being introduced to a lady, make a pun on her name, if it is a homely one, or jokingly allude to rouge-pots and whited sepulchers, if she is no longer young, with an air of having resorted to preservative aids. Illogical but intuitive, the feminine mind is swift to imagine and resent an innuendo where perhaps none was intended. Never, if the lady be young but homely, at once patronizingly remark that, after all, handsome is as handsome does, and you have even known the dowdiest and most unattractive girls make good matches through tact and perseverance. However laudable your intention, there may be a muscular brother inconveniently in the background. Never attempt to sing or play, even though pressed to do so, if you are absolutely ignorant of both vocal and instrumental music. Effects might, indeed, be produced, but would they be desirable? Never be so self-conscious as to fancy yourself a cave-bear and other people but field-mice. “True politeness will betray no hoggishness,” as an ancient writer has sagely observed. Never, especially with your superiors, buttonhole people, or shake your fist in their faces, or pound them in the ribs when you have occasion to address them. This is more appropriate to a horse auction than a drawing-room, and is in violation of good form. Never lean across one person with your hands on his knees and your back-hair in his face, to talk to another. Never bawl out at the top of your lungs, or try to monopolize all the talk; you are neither in the stock exchange nor a cattle yard. Never, if bald and warm, mop and rub up your head, ears and neck with your handkerchief. A reception or drawing-room is not a barber-shop. Never intrude your maladies upon the general conversation. People cannot be so much interested in your bunions or backache as you are. Never violently abuse people who may overhear you, nor be bitingly witty at another’s expense. Never interrupt the general conversation by reading long-winded newspaper reports aloud. Never contemptuously criticise the furniture, the pictures, or the wall-paper as being cheap and mean. This is but a scurvy return for the hospitality you are enjoying. Never chew tobacco, or smoke a pipe at receptions. If you must do the one or the other, be sure to use the cuspidor; but it is safer to let up on tobacco until out-of-doors, or in your own room. Never calumniate people, or give a false coloring to your statements. In other words, don’t lie any more than you can help. Be diplomatic. Never, above all, fail in tact. For instance, don’t say that the room is as cold as a barn, even if you think so. Tact and fact may not always go hand-in-hand. Never interrupt or contradict overbearingly, or with a sort of snort. Either of these faults is directly opposed to the canons of good society. Never be explosive or pugnacious, accompanying your side of an argument with roaring explosives and furious gesticulations. A lady’s...