CHAPTER XXII.
OUR BOY.
The following is a _bona fide_ letter.

It is written in such genuine earnest, and so clearly voices the sentiments of many young men of the present day, that I am glad to have an opportunity to answer it.
1.

Why should I, a fast-growing, hard-working youth of eighteen, who go every morning, four miles by street-car, to my office, and the same back at night, often so weary and faint as to be hardly able to sit, not to say stand, be obliged to give up my seat to any flighty, flashy girl who has come down-town to shop, or frolic, or do nothing?
Isn't she as able to "swing corners" holding on to a strap as I?
and to hold her own perpendicular in the aisle?
2.

Why isn't it as rude for her and her companions to giggle and whisper and stare, the objects of amusement being her fellow-passengers, as it would be for me and my fellows?
Yet we would be "roughs"-- and she and her crew must be "treated with the deference due the gentler sex." And why am I a boor if I do not give her my seat, while she is considered a lady if she takes it without thanking me?
3.

Are girls, take them as a rule, as well-bred as boys?
Judging by appearances, it would seem that many men share in the feeling expressed in your first query.