NO GENTLEMAN.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3148, 30 July 1881, Page 4

NO GENTLEMAN.

When I was an undergraduate afc Oxford T was waiting behind t.wo boys in the Highstreet, and ovei'heard. a singular fragment their conversation, which introduced what seemed to be a proverbial expression, though it was new to me, and where the boy got it I bavo nevei* been able to. guess. One said to the other, " You're no gentleman !" The other at once retorted, "No gentleman ! I have got wit and manners, and you've got neither wit, wealth, nor manners !" Wit, wealth, and manners struck me as being attributes which describe a gentleman a good deal more accurately than "keeping a gig," and many other attempts ro ''pfim* one of the most complex w .H- i> . in , liniMiase Where a common •■(>(■ '•■ v iiof tuinh a definition I cannot iHi'W'ivt'. ''In 1 difficulty, however, of in-V"!i(-j'-g a flioroughlv f'oiiiprcheii:-!ve defini- . i -vi of l-hi- parli'-tilrtr character is exemplified by another University story of the same date, and from the same source, which tends to point that even wit, wealth, and manners are not sufficient, unless manners be taken in the very broad Wvkhamical sense implied in the motto. " Manner* makyth man." Wit, wealth, and manners in the ordinary sense omit the idea not only of personal honesty, but also of that generous confidence in other people's honesty without which no man, according to the following opinion, is a gentleman. Some undergraduates, talking to a well-known horse dealer of the day, said rather offhandedly, " Oh, Smith, how you do take men in about a horBe!" "Take men in, sir, take men in, what do you mean P I don't take them in; if a gentleman came to me and says, 'Mr Smith I want a good horse ; now you know what a good horse is, so look me out one,' and treats me as one gentleman should treat another, I treats him accordin', but when I show a horse to a gentleman, if he begins at once, ' Why, he's got a spavin, or he's thick in the wind,' and pretends to know something about a horse, why 'of course' I does him." My own experience has certainly taught me to believe that on the whole I get better served by throwing myself on the honour of a tradesman in matter" of which I can have but little technical knowledge, than many do who know only just enough to make them critical and suspicious. T say "on the whole," because the last silk umbrella which I bought on this principal was certainly not successful. In connection with this word " gentleman," I have been once or twice not flattered. I remember asking a servant whether she knew who it was that had called while I was out, and I said, " Was it a clergyman ?" "Oh no, sir," she replied, "it wasn't a clergyman, is was a gentleman." "An "old soldier" tramp rather amused me some years ago from the same point of view. He did not straighforwardly beg, but as I passed he said to his mate, quite loudly enough for me to hear, " Very like Major Beck with " —I did not respond—"only more of a gentleman." I was still untouched, and my punishment awaited me. " The major I mean," were the last words that caught my ear.—Leisure Hour.