[originaltext] If there is one thing I hate more than anything else, it is q

If there is one thing I hate more than anything else, it is queue-jumping. It is uncultured, selfish, and meaner than the meanest act of any lesser animal. For although in order to secure a mate or food or to flee danger, a beast will sometimes stop at nothing in trying to get ahead of the next fellow creature, it at least does it openly, guiltlessly, without the sophistication peculiar only to man.
    One of the more usual procedures of queue-jumping involves finding an acquaintance in the queue, going up to him, starting a conversation, perhaps offering him a cigarette, and finally squeezing one’s way into the line.
    Even if one does not know a single person in the line, one is not put out. One goes up and down the queue, studying the faces, deciding on a susceptible one, Stopping by its side, moving on as the queue moves on and, at the most opportune moment and without a by-your-leave, plants oneself just ahead of it. If the owner of the face does not protest, as happens more often than you imagine, the thing is done. On one Of the occasions on which I was chosen as the owner of such a face, the queue-jumper even had the cheek to ask: "Wasn’t I standing here a moment ago?"
    Speaking of cheek, I must relate what I overheard a middle-aged lady, herself a queue- jumper, remark to an associate of hers: "Look at those domestic servants, they are always jumping the queue. There’s no stopping them." Has ever a beast or bird been known to "out-cheek" her?