This storybook explores a rustic boy's attempt to become a gentleman, first by folly, then by soliciting advice, and finally by adopting a mindset of listening to others. The boy travels to a city to seek advice on becoming a gentleman, and through a mishap, encounters famous Western philosophers in a secret speakeasy who variously compete with one another to impress upon the boy their own particular notion of a gentleman. The boy grows ever more perplexed until he encounters Socrates, who resolves the boy's confusion by listening and questioning rather than proscribing and declaiming. The...