, those over whom he
exercises authority.

It is unnecessary for a man to rise every time one of the girls in his
office enters his private audience room, but he should always rise to
receive a visitor, whether it is a man or woman, and should ask the
visitor to be seated before he sits down himself. In witheringly hot
weather a man may go without his coat even if his entire office force
consists of girls, but he should never receive a guest in his shirt
sleeves. He should listen deferentially to what the visitor has to say,
but if she becomes too voluble or threatens to stay too long or if there
is other business waiting for him, he may (if he can) cut short her
conversation. When she is ready to go he should rise and conduct her to
the door or to the elevator, as the case may be, and ring the bell for
her. He cannot, of course, do this if his visitors are frequent, if
their calls are about matters of trifling importance, or if he is
working under high pressure.

We once had an English visitor here in America who thought our manners
were outrageously bad, but there was one point on which we won a perfect
score. "Any lady," he said, "may travel alone, from one end of the
United States to the other, and be certain of the most courteous and
considerate treatment everywhere. Nor did I ever once, on any occasion,
anywhere, during my rambles in America, see a woman exposed to the
slightest act of rudeness, incivility, or even inattention." Conditions
have changed since then. Women had not left their homes to go into
offices and factories, but unless we can hold to the standard described
by the Englishman, the change has not been for the better, for any of
the people concerned.

Since the Victorian era our ideas of what constitutes an act of rudeness
have been modified. Then it would have been unthinkable that a woman
should remain standing in a coach while men were seated. Now it is
possible for a man to keep his place while a woman swings from a strap
and defend himself on the grounds that he has worked harder during the
day than she (how he knows is more than we can say), and that he has
just as much right (which is certainly true) as any one else. Yet it is
a gracious and a chivalrous act for a man to offer a woman his place on
a car, and it is very gratifying to see that hundreds of them, even in
the cities, where life goes at its swiftest pace and people live always
in a hurry, surrender their seats in favor of the w