every one dresses for dinner; some
actually in ball dresses, which is in worst possible taste, and, like all
over-dressing in public places, indicates that they have no other place to
show their finery. People of position never put on formal evening dress on
a steamer, not even in the _a la carte_ restaurant, which is a feature of
the _de luxe_ steamer of size. In the dining saloon they wear afternoon
house dresses--without hats--for dinner. In the restaurant they wear
semi-dinner dresses. Some smart men on the ordinary steamers put on a dark
sack suit for dinner after wearing country clothes all day, but in the _de
luxe_ restaurant they wear Tuxedo coats. No gentleman wears a tail-coat on
shipboard under any circumstances whatsoever.

=TRAVELING ABROAD=

Just as one discordant note makes more impression than all the others that
are correctly played in an entire symphony, so does a discordant incident
stand out and dominate a hundred others that are above criticism, and
therefore unnoticed.

In every country of Europe and Asia are Americans who combine the
brilliancy which none can deny is the birthright of the newer world, with
the cultivation and good breeding of the old. These Americans of the best
type go all over the world, fitting in so perfectly with their background
that not even the inhabitants notice they are strangers; in other words
they achieve the highest accomplishment possible.

But in contrast to these, the numberless discordant ones are only too
familiar; one sees them swarming over Europe in bunches, sometimes in
hordes, on regular professionally run tours. This, of course, does not
mean that all personally conducted tourists are anything like them. The
objectionables are loud of voice, loud in manner; they always attract as
much attention as possible to themselves, and wave American flags on all
occasions.

The American flag is the most wonderful emblem in the whole world, and
ours is the most glorious country too, but that does not mean that it is
good taste to wave our flag for no reason whatever. At a parade or on an
especial day when other people are waving flags, then let us wave ours by
all means--but not otherwise. It does not dignify our flag to make it an
object of ridicule to others, and that is exactly the result of the
ceaseless flaunting of it by a group of people who talk at the top of
their voices, who deliberately assume that the atmosphere belongs to them,
and who behave like