<h2><SPAN name="SMOKING" id="SMOKING"></SPAN><i>SMOKING.</i></h2>
<p class="nind"><span class="smcap">The</span> etiquette in this, as in many other matters, has quite altered
during the last few years. At one time it was considered a sign of
infamously bad taste to smoke in the presence of women in any
circumstances. But it is now no longer so.</p>
<div class="sidenote">The domain of Princess Nicotine.</div>
<p>So many women smoke themselves, that in some houses even the
drawing-room is thrown open to Princess Nicotine.</p>
<div class="sidenote">The leader of the fashion.</div>
<p>The example of the Prince of Wales has been largely instrumental in
sweeping away the old restrictions. He smokes almost incessantly. On one
occasion, at the Ranelagh Club, I noticed that he consumed four cigars
in rapid succession, almost without five minutes’ interval between them.
The only time that he left off smoking, during the three hours that he
remained in the Pavilion with the Princess and other ladies, was for ten
minutes when tea was handed round.</p>
<div class="sidenote">The lengths to which a smoker may now go.</div>
<p>It is now no uncommon thing to see a man in evening dress smoking in a
brougham with a lady on their way to opera, theatre, or dinner
engagement. This is going rather far, for a woman’s evening dress
implies shut<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="page_033" id="page_033"></SPAN>{33}</span> windows, except in the height of summer, and her garments
become as much impregnated with the odour of tobacco as if she had
herself been smoking.</p>
<div class="sidenote">On getting rid of the smell.</div>
<p>Some men have a knack of ridding their clothes and themselves of the
fumes of smoke in a wonderful way. Perhaps one reason of this is that
the tobacco they use is of a mild sort.</p>
<div class="sidenote">Try the clothes-brush.</div>
<p>Perhaps the diligent use of the clothes-brush is another. But there are
also men round whom cling the odours of stale tobacco with a very
disagreeable constancy. Why it should be so I cannot pretend to say. It
must be due to carelessness of some kind, and carelessness in such
matters amounts to bad manners. Even to men who smoke—and much more to
those who do not—the smell of stale tobacco is revolting. Fancy, then,
how it must offend the olfactory nerves of women. Such men suggest the
stableyard while they are yet several yards away!</p>
<div class="sidenote">Personal cleanliness a hall-mark of the English gentleman.</div>
<p>A very delicate, even exquisite, personal cleanliness is characteristic
of the true gentleman, and more particularly the English gentleman, who
is noted all the world over for his devotion to his “tub” and his
immaculate propriety in all matters of the toilette. This is not
claiming too much for my countrymen.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="page_034" id="page_034"></SPAN>{34}</span> It is acknowledged by other
nations that ours is superior in this respect. Once, indeed, I heard a
curious inversion of this. At a foreign hotel one waiter said to the
other in their mutual language: “What dirty fellows these English must
be to want such a lot of washing! I’ve carried up four cans of water to
No. 47 this morning!”</p>
<p>Sauntering up the street of a small German town one day, two English
ladies saw, a couple of hundred yards away, a party of men standing
admiring an ancient gateway.</p>
<div class="sidenote">“They must be English.”</div>
<p>“They must be English,” said one of the ladies; and before she could
finish her sentence the other finished it for her in the very words she
had been about to utter: “They are so beautifully clean!”</p>
<div class="sidenote">The close-cropped head.</div>
<p>This characteristic is carried to an extreme in the close clipping of
the hair; but as fashion ordains that it must be worn very short, its
behests must be obeyed by all who wish to be in society and of it.</p>
<div class="sidenote">The “long-haired fellow.”</div>
<p>“Who is that long-haired fellow?” is the question invariably asked about
any man whose visits to the barber are infrequent. “Must be an artist or
a music man,” is the frequent commentary. Sometimes he is merely
careless of conventionalities, and by being so proves that he is rather
“out of it” where good society is concerned. The rule appears<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="page_035" id="page_035"></SPAN>{35}</span> to be
that directly a man finds that he has any hair worth brushing, he must
immediately go and have it cut. It would be much more becoming if
allowed to grow a little longer, but things being as they are, only the
few can afford to defy the ordinary custom.<span class="pagenum"><SPAN name="page_036" id="page_036"></SPAN>{36}</span></p>
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