this work both ways? What right
have people to bother other people with perfectly foolish and imbecile
questions? Is there any one who cannot sympathize with a "sucker-sore"
attendant? And with the people who are stationed about for the purpose
of answering questions almost anywhere? There are not many of us who at
one time and another have not had the feeling that we were on the wrong
train even after we had asked the man who sold us the ticket, the man
who punched it at the gate, the guard who was standing near the
entrance, and the guard who was standing near the train, the porter, the
conductor, and the news-butcher if it was the right one and have had an
affirmative answer from every one of them. How many times can a man be
expected to answer such a question with a smile? For those who are
exposed to "suckers" the best advice is to be as gentle with them as
possible, to grit your teeth and hold your temper even when the
ninety-thousandth man comes through to ask if this is the right train.
For the "suckers" themselves there are only two words of advice. They
include all the rest: Stop it.

It is impossible to tell what the value of courtesy is. Perhaps some day
the people who have learned to measure our minds will be able to tell us
just what a smile is worth. Maybe they can tell us also what Spring is
worth, and what happiness is worth. Meanwhile we do not know. We only
know that they are infinitely precious.

III

PUTTING COURTESY INTO BUSINESS

We talk a great deal about gentlemen and about democracy and a good many
other words which describe noble conceptions without a very clear idea
of what they mean. The biggest mistake we make is in thinking of them as
something stationary like a monument carved in granite or a stone set
upon a hill, when the truth is that they are living ideas subject to the
change and growth of all living things. No man has ever yet become a
perfect gentleman because as his mind has developed his conception of
what a gentleman is has enlarged, just as no country has ever become a
perfect democracy because each new idea of freedom has led to broader
ideas of freedom. It is very much like walking through a tunnel. At
first there is only darkness, and then a tiny pin point of light ahead
which grows wider and wider as one advances toward it until, finally, he
stands out in the open with the world before him. There is no end to
life, and none to human development, at least none t