In speaking about other people, one says “Mrs.,” “Miss” or “Mr.” as the case may be.  It is bad form to go about saying “Edith Worldly” or “Ethel Norman” to those who do not call them Edith or Ethel, and to speak thus familiarly of one whom you do not call by her first name, is unforgivable.  It is also effrontery for a younger person to call an older by her or his first name, without being asked to do so.  Only a very underbred, thick-skinned person would attempt it.

Also you must not take your conversation “out of the drawing-room.”  Operations, ills or personal blemishes, details and appurtenances of the dressing-room, for instance, are neither suitable nor pleasant topics, nor are personal jokes in good taste.

=THE “OMNISCIENCE” OF THE VERY RICH=

Why a man, because he has millions, should assume that they confer omniscience in all branches of knowledge, is something which may be left to the psychologist to answer, but most of those thrown much in contact with millionaires will agree that an attitude of infallibility is typical of a fair majority.

A professor who has devoted his life to a subject modestly makes a statement.  “You are all wrong,” says the man of millions, “It is this way——­“.  As a connoisseur he seems to think that because he can pay for anything he fancies, he is accredited expert as well as potential owner.  Topics he does not care for are “bosh,” those which he has a smattering of, he simply appropriates; his prejudices are, in his opinion, expert criticism; his taste impeccable; his judgment infallible; and to him the world is a pleasance built for his sole pleasuring.  But to the rest of us who also have to live in it with as much harmony as we can, such persons are certainly elephants at large in the garden.  We can sometimes induce them to pass through gently, but they are just as likely at any moment to pull up our fences and push the house itself over on our defenseless heads.

There are countless others of course, very often the richest of all, who are authoritative in all they profess, who are experts and connoisseurs, who are human and helpful and above everything respecters of the garden enclosure of others.

=DANGERS TO BE AVOIDED=

In conversation the dangers are very much the same as those to be avoided in writing letters.  Talk about things which you think will be agreeable to your hearer.  Don’t dilate on ills, misfortune, or other unpleasantnesses.  The one in greatest danger of making enemies is the man or woman of brilliant wit.  If sharp, wit is apt to produce a feeling of mistrust even while it stimulates.  Furthermore the applause which follows every witty sally becomes in time breath to the nostrils, and perfectly well-intentioned, people, who mean to say nothing unkind, in the flash of a second “see a point,” and in the next second, score it with no more power to resist than a drug addict can resist a dose put into his hand!