Posted verbatim and without editorial comment, a paragraph from Elliott Chaze’s noir crime story Black Wings Has My Angel (1953):

“But about the gentleman thing.” She waved her glass. “I want to make it plain as the nose on your face. I can stand anything in the book but gentlemen. Because I’ve spent a lot of time, too much time with them, and I know why gentlemen are what they are…

They decide to be that way after they’ve tried all the real things and flopped at them. They’ve flopped at women. They’ve flopped at standing up on their hind legs and acting like men. So they become gentlemen. They’ve flopped at being individuals. So they say to themselves one fine morning: ‘What can I be that’s no trouble at all and that doesn’t amount to a damned thing, yet will make everyone look up to me?’ The answer’s simple. Be a gentleman. Take life flat on your back, and cry in private and in a well-modulated voice.”