erwise be well employed.

17. Secrecy is another characteristic of good-breeding. Be careful not
to tell in one company, what you see or hear in another; much less to
divert the present company at the expense of the last. Things apparently
indifferent may, when often repeated and told abroad, have much more
serious consequences than imagined. In conversation there is generally a
tacit reliance, that what is said will not be repeated; and a man,
though not enjoined to secrecy, will be excluded company, if found to be
a tattler; besides, he will draw himself into a thousand scrapes, and
every one will be afraid to speak before him.

18. Pulling out your watch in company unasked, either at home or abroad,
is a mark of ill-breeding; if at home, it appears as if you were tired
of your company, and wished them to be gone; if abroad, as if the hours
drag heavily, and you wished to be gone yourself. If you want to know
the time, withdraw; besides, as the taking what is called a French leave
was introduced, that on one person's leaving the company the rest might
not be disturbed, looking at your watch does what that piece of
politeness was designed to prevent: it is a kind of dictating to all
present, and telling them it is time, or almost time, to break up.

19. Among other things, let me caution you against ever being in a
hurry; a man of sense may be in haste, but he is never in a hurry;
convinced, that hurry is the surest way to make him do what he
undertakes ill. To be in a hurry, is a proof that the business we embark
in is too great for us; of course, it is the mark of little minds, that
are puzzled and perplexed when they should be cool and deliberate; they
wish to do every thing at once, and are thus able to do nothing. Be
steady, then, in all your engagements; look round you before you begin;
and remember, that you had better do half of them well, and leave the
rest undone, than to do the whole indifferently.

20. From a kind of false modesty, most young men are apt to consider
familiarity as unbecoming. Forwardness I allow is so; but there is a
decent familiarity that is necessary in the course of life. Mere formal
visits, upon formal invitations, are not the thing; they create no
connection, nor will they prove of service to you; it is the careless
and easy ingress and egress, at all hours, that secures an acquaintance
to our interest, and this is acquired by a respectful familiarity
entered into, without forfeiti