But indeed there is another fault of which the negotiator must beware: he must not fall into the error of supposing that an air of mystery, in which secrets are made out of nothing and in which the merest bagatelle is exalted into a great matter of state, is anything but a mark of smallness of mind and betokens an incapacity to take the true measure either of men or of things. Indeed, the more the negotiator clothes himself in mystery, the less he will have means of discovering what is happening and of acquiring the confidence of those with whom he deals. A continual reserve is like the lock on a door which is never turned and becomes so rusty that in the end no man can open it. The able negotiator will of course not permit his secret to be drawn from him except at his own time, and he should be able to disguise from his competitor the fact that he has any secret to reveal; but in all other matters he must remember that open dealing is the foundation of confidence and that everything which he is not compelled by duty to withhold ought to be freely shared with those around him. He will thus gradually establish terms of confidence with his neighbours, from which he may draw immense profit, for it may not infrequently happen that in exchange for some trivial information given by himself, the negotiator may, as it were by accident, receive important news from his colleague in another embassy. The practised negotiator will know how to employ the circumstances of his life and of the lives of those around him in such a manner as to lead them naturally and without restraint to talk of the conditions and affairs of their own country, and the more extended his view and the wider his knowledge the more surely will he thus gather important news every day of his life. [Sidenote: _Dignity._]