A true gentleman sets himself on fire immediately upon a lady entering the room.

A true gentleman never impregnates a kitchenmaid while there are fertile chambermaids in the house.

A true gentleman never speaks to wolves, only foxes and bears.

A real gentleman will always allow himself to be immured in his mother’s tomb as soon as she dies.

A real gentleman will lift a bus when anyone more feminine than himself wishes to cross the street.

A true gentleman will have active sexual intercourse with any member in good standing of a national fraternity who can sing every verse of their school’s fight song.

A real gentleman is never three small Dutch boys standing on each other’s shoulders wearing a trenchcoat.

A true gentleman is incapable of speaking of money; his flesh burns if anyone attempts to press change into his palm.

A real gentleman goes nowhere without the final gin-soaked breath of Robert Frost carefully hand-stitched onto his pocket square.

A true gentleman always carries a spare dog with him.

A true gentlemen remembers that discretion is the better part of genitals.

A true gentleman can neither breakfast nor make love without first crisply re-folding a newspaper.

A true gentleman never opens his mouth at the dentist’s, preferring instead to let the technician infer what may be wrong through the expressiveness of his eyes.

A true gentleman never participates in battle reenactments or purchases Winston Churchill biographies with fewer than three volumes.

A true gentleman knows how to behave when a woman is crying — drape her in cats and quietly exit backwards from the room.

A true gentleman never discusses his emotions while riding a pennyfarthing bicycle; he waits until his feet are on the ground.

A true gentleman never permits his beard to grow at inappropriate times, and makes violent love to his barber as a sign of respect at least once a financial quarter.

A true gentleman never uses the “invisible in multiplayer” cheat code in GoldenEye 007.

A true gentleman carries with him always the complete essays of John Locke and will spread them across a puddle rather than allow a lady to muddy her shoe, even if she insists that she can just “walk around it, it’s fine.”