How one may know the perfect Gentleman.

So, regardless of expense, a gold cigarette case was obtained and put down to expenses.  And yet on the first night of that musical play, when that leading personage smashed a tray over a waiter’s head, and, after a row with the police, came home drunk to his wife, even that gold cigarette case failed to convince one that the man was a gentleman beyond all doubt.

The old writers appear to have been singularly unaware of the importance attaching to these socks, and ties, and cigarette-cases.  They told us merely what the man felt and thought.  What reliance can we place upon them?  How could they possibly have known what sort of man he was underneath his clothes?  Tweed or broadcloth is not transparent.  Even could they have got rid of his clothes there would have remained his flesh and bones.  It was pure guess-work.  They did not observe.

The modern writer goes to work scientifically.  He tells us that the creature wore a made-up tie.  From that we know he was not a gentleman; it follows as the night the day.  The fashionable novelist notices the young man’s socks.  It reveals to us whether the marriage would have been successful or a failure.  It is necessary to convince us that the hero is a perfect gentleman: the author gives him a gold cigarette case.

A well-known dramatist has left it on record that comedy cannot exist nowadays, for the simple reason that gentlemen have given up taking snuff and wearing swords.  How can one have comedy in company with frock-coats—without its “Las” and its “Odds Bobs.”

The sword may have been helpful.  I have been told that at levées City men, unaccustomed to the thing, have, with its help, provided comedy for the rest of the company.

But I take it this is not the comedy our dramatist had in mind.