Page:The Sunday Eight O'Clock (1916).pdf/130

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vice. It was so regular that their belated arrival seemed planned, deliberate, quite intentional.

I have learned since that being late or being on time is all a matter of habit, just as one learns to put on one's clothing in an orderly way without following a recipe.

It is usually the same persons who regularly come late to church or who tiptoe into the class room ten minutes after the last bell has rung, or who annoy the sensitive soprano and the whole auditorium full of people by stumbling into their seats while the program is under way. And the people who are late are usually in a hurry. I meet them daily going up the stairs three steps at a time, rushing breathlessly to catch a disappearing car, or coming in hot and perspiring in a vain attempt to make up for a late start.

We have all suffered from the selfishness of the man chronically behind his schedule. A friend of mine who is punctiliously prompt in meeting all of his engagements says that