black, around the depot, butt them when he could, and be ridden by
them when he couldn't. He had long since lost his situation at the
sheep fold, having proved rather an attraction to dogs, who are fond
of low company, than a protection to sheep. Untidy, thriftless, a
loafer, kicked and cuffed about by the public and half starved, he
presented a pitiable contrast to his wife, neat little lady, who, after
her husband had lost his situation, left him and joined a respectable
circle of cows and spent her time with them, fat, sleek, eminently
respectable, and as regular as clockwork in taking them out to pasture
and bringing them home. The moral point that I wish to make is this--if
you give a woman half a chance she will be a lady; if you give a man
half a chance he will go to the dogs. It is in the sex of the animal.

* * * * *

I often hear it said of a man that he has "the manners of the old
school," by which is meant courteous, deferential manners. I don't
know that any particular "school," old or new, will give a man good
manners, but it is certainly true that age does ripen and mellow those
of both men and women. As we grow older we become aware that there are
a great many other people besides ourselves in the world, and that if
we want to go through it smoothly we must keep to the right and not
insist on keeping our elbows akimbo in a crowd. A rude young man may
reform, but a rude old man may be regarded as having been illy bred
early in life, and hopeless. Good manners are very like the catechism
lessons our mothers teach us when children. They don't count for a
great deal at the time, but the result comes up in life a long, long
time afterwards. I think I can tell you of the "old school" where
really good manners originated. The Teacher has long since gone, and
sometimes I have fear the old school itself has changed, but He left