G. Clarence Whippington

I have always been interested in manners – from whence they derive, their meaning, and what they say about our society.
If someone from my grandmother’s era could ride in Wells’s Time Machine to the present day, he would no doubt conclude that our nation is barbaric, and in decline. It is unfortunate enough that most husbands fail to open the car door for their wives, but my friend Smedley oftentimes hops behind the wheel, revs up his old Pontiac, and goes sailing down the road, oblivious to the sad fact that he has left his spouse standing on the front stoop. Once he arrived at a restaurant, and was making his way toward the entrance when, from the corner of his eye, he saw something strange clinging to his passenger side door. It was his wife’s glove, wedged into the handle – he had ripped it from his her hand just as she was grasping it to get in!
Now, certainly Smedley is exceptionally inattentive, but such was not the case with the young man I observed only last month on the campus of an eminent university in our fair town. I was to deliver a speech on the English language at the college’s lecture hall (as I sometimes still do, even though I am retired from the academic life). I was huffing and puffing up the steps to the hall when this thoughtless young fellow passed me quickly, flung open the door, and let it slam emphatically in my face just as I approached. I had a large metal coffee thermos in my left hand and a bulky briefcase in my right, and I chose to set down the briefcase in order to open the door, and when I did, naturally the case toppled over, spilling its contents. At that instant, a great breeze sprang up (one of those warm, subtropical winds we ordinarily relish here) and scattered the pages of my lecture, which I had spent many hours preparing, across that verdant campus, like the demented thoughts of some madman.
I spent the better part of that afternoon (it was a two-hour slot) babbling – incoherently, I am sure – about the second-generation Romantic poets, as one hundred and fifty bewildered faces stared at me as if I were speaking in some strange tongue. And to add to my woes, roughly six months later, I read an article in a literary journal, written by my great rival, Sir Brumley Feckenthal, which had a familiar ring to it. I suddenly realized that it was the text of my lecture, word for word. Some literary adventurer had obviously found my pages, somehow pieced them together, and peddled them on the academic black market. What chagrin I suffered! Small consolation that it was a fine piece of writing indeed.
All of this is merely to illustrate my point: that the well-mannered person is a rare bird in these times. Still, it would be unfair should I fail to relate an anecdote concerning Jorge Lavender, Patron Saint of Coffee in the San Marco District. Lovely man, he was one of the great gentlemen I have ever known. Every morning of my life for weeks on end, I would arrive at my favorite café on the square, and there would be Jorge Lavender’s broad, smiling face, like an omelet with a cantaloupe smile.
“Ah, Professor Whippington, our best customer!” he would say. Then he would pull a chair out for me at my favorite table. Then he would trot off to fetch me an extra-large mug of steaming House Blend with whipped cream.
“On the house, as always,” he would say. Then he would fetch his own mug, sit down with me, and regale me for about an hour with amusing tales of his boyhood in Puerto Rico. Then he would rise, saying, “Well, back to work!” and he would disappear through the kitchen door.
Then, oddly enough, one sunny morning, he was not there to greet me. I asked the girl at the register,
“Where is that lovely owner of yours today, Jorge Lavender?”
She looked at me blankly. “Owner? That man is not the owner. Our owner’s name is Johnson.”
“I’m afraid you’re mistaken. Jorge Lavender is the owner. He told me so himself. He has been treating me to a free cup of coffee every day for quite a long time now.”
“But sir,” she said, “the gentleman you refer to told us that he is an associate of yours and that, in fact, you have been buying his coffee! We have been running a business account for you for eight months now.”
“Eight months! What do you mean, business account? I am a retired professor of literature.”
She shrugged her shoulders, but enlightenment was breaking across my dull mind. I said: “I say, I think that I’ve been had. What is the total on this business account?”
She tapped at her calculator. “One hundred fifty-three dollars and thirty-seven cents,” she said.
However, I was lucky. I never did get to see Jorge Lavender again, but Johnson, the real owner, agreed to let me pay the bill in monthly installments with no interest.
I thought that was very well-mannered of him.

In any event, that’s how things look from my corner of the café.