Читать книгу Scouting for Boys - Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell Baron Baden-Powell of Gilwell - Страница 47

When you are travelling by train or tram always notice every little thing about your fellow travellers; notice their faces, dress, way of talking and so on so that you could describe them each pretty accurately afterwards; and also try and make out from their appearance and behaviour whether they are rich or poor (which you can generally tell from their boots), and what is their probable business, whether they are happy, or ill, or in want of help.

But in doing this you must not let them see you are watching them, else it puts them on their guard. Remember the shepherd-boy who noticed the gipsy's boots, but did not look at him and so did not make the gipsy suspicious of him.

Close observation of people and ability to read their character and their thoughts is of immense value in trade and commerce, especially for a shop-assistant or salesman in persuading people to buy goods, or in detecting would-be swindlers.

It is said that you can tell a man's character from the way he wears his hat. If it is slightly on one side, the wearer is good-natured: if it is worn very much on one side, he is a swaggerer: if on the back of his head, he is bad at paying his debts: if worn straight on the top, he is probably honest but very dull.

The way a man (or a woman) walks is often a good guide to his character—witness the fussy, swaggering little man paddling along with short steps with much arm-action, the nervous man's hurried, jerky stride, the slow slouch of the loafer, the smooth going and silent step of the scout, and so on.

I was once accused of mistrusting men with waxed moustaches. Well, so, to a certain extent, I do. It often means vanity and sometimes drink.

Certainly the "quiff" or lock of hair which some lads wear on their forehead is a sure sign of silliness. The shape of the face gives a good guide to the man's character.

Perhaps you can tell the character of these gentlemen?

Character of gentlemen.

I was speaking with a detective not long ago about a gentleman we had both been talking to, and we were trying to make out his character. I remarked—"well, at any rate, he was a fisherman," but my companion could not see why: but then he was not a fisherman himself. I had noticed a lot of little tufts of cloth sticking upon the left cuff of his coat.

A good many fishermen, when they take their flies off the line, stick them into their cap to dry: others stick them into their sleeve. When dry they pull them out, which often tears a thread or two of the cloth.

It is an amusing practice when you are in a railway carriage or omnibus with other people to look only at their feet and guess without looking any higher what sort of people they are, old or young, well to do or poor, fat or thin, and so on, and then look up and see how near you have been to the truth.

Mr. Nat Goodwin, the American actor, once described to me how he went to see a balloon ascent at a time when he happened to be suffering from a stiff neck. He was only able to look down instead of up—and he could only see the feet of the people round him in the crowd so he chose among the feet those that he felt sure belonged to an affable kind-hearted man who would describe to him what the balloon was doing.

I once was able to be of service to a lady who was in poor circumstances, as I had guessed it from noticing, while walking behind her, that though she was well dressed the soles of her shoes were in the last stage of disrepair. I don't suppose she ever knew how I guessed that she was in a bad way.

But it is surprising how much of the sole of the boot you can see when behind a person walking—and it is equally surprising how much meaning you can read from that boot. It is said that to wear out soles and heels equally is to give evidence of business capacity and honesty; to wear your heels down on the outside means that you are a man of imagination and love of adventure; but heels worn down on the inside signify weakness and indecision of character, and this last sign is more infallible in the case of man than in that of woman.

Remember how "Sherlock Holmes" met a stranger and noticed that he was looking fairly well-to-do, in new clothes with a mourning band on his sleeve, with a soldierly bearing, and a sailor's way of walking, sunburnt, with tattoo marks on his hands, and he was carrying some children's toys in his hand. What should you have supposed that man to be? Well! Sherlock Holmes guessed, correctly, that he had lately retired from the Royal Marines as a Sergeant, and his wife had died, and he had some small children at home.