In order to gain popularity with a very large proportion of business men, many of whom have to-day risen from nothing to riches since the War, one thing is fundamentally necessary. You must never appear to be superior even if you are. Not long ago one of the New York banks added a new vice-president. He was chosen not for his ability but for his hearty vulgarity, so that he could “make contacts” with the bank’s new sort of customers! Too perfect an accent in English may be almost as dangerous in business as a false one in Latin used to be in the House of Lords. To display a knowledge or taste in art or literature not possessed by your “prospect” may be fatal. On the whole, it is safest to plump yourself down to his level at once whatever that may be, to talk his talk, and only about what he talks. This pressure of the majority on one’s personal tastes was amusingly exemplified to me one day when I was looking for a house to rent in a pleasant Jersey suburb. In the house shown me—as is the case in all the suburbs of New York I know—there was nothing to mark where my lawn might end and my neighbor’s begin. All was as open to the public gaze as the street itself. I thought of delightful English or French gardens, surrounded by hedge or wall, screened from the public, where one could putter absurdly over one’s plants, read one’s book, or have one’s supper as much to one’s self as in the house. In fact they are outdoor rooms, infinitely more attractive than the American[Pg 212] “sun parlor.” I knew well that no such attempt could be made here, but, nevertheless, I remarked to the “realtor” that it would be pleasant to have a hedge and privacy but I supposed it could not be done on account of the neighbors. “I say No,” he answered with pained surprise, “if you are going to be ‘high hat’ you won’t last long here.” Just so, and so many things in this country are “high hat” which in other lands simply make for sane and cultivated living that it is no wonder that the business man whose car and cellarette, if not bread and butter, depend so often on his popularity, has to walk warily.