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Business
If you had a commission to give and you entered a man's office and found him
lolling back in a tipped swivel chair, his feet above his head, the ubiquitous
cigar in his mouth and his drowsy attention fixed on the sporting page of the
newspaper, you would be impressed not so much by his lack of good manners as by
his bad business policy, because of the incompetence that his attitude suggests.
It is scarcely necessary to ask: Would you give an important commission to him
who has no apparent intention of doing anything but “take his ease”; or to him
who is found occupied at his desk, who gets up with alacrity upon your entrance,
and is seemingly “on his toes” mentally as well as actually? Or, would you go in
preference to a man whose manners resemble those of a bear at the Zoo, if you
could go to another whose business ability is supplemented by personal charm?
And this again is merely an illustration of bad manners and good.