Perfect Behavior | Page 8

leave your
work an hour or two earlier in the afternoon, so that you can go home
and practice such necessary things as entering or leaving a room
correctly. Most young men are extremely careless in this particular, and
unless you rehearse yourself thoroughly in the proper procedure you
are apt to find later on to your dismay that you have made your exit
through a window onto the fire-escape instead of through the proper
door.
CONVERSATION AND SOME OF ITS USES
Your conversation should also be planned more or less in advance.
Select some topic in which you think your lady friend will be interested,
such as, for example, the removal of tonsils and adenoids, and "read
up" on the subject so that you can discuss it in an intelligent manner.
Find out, for example, how many people had tonsils removed in
February, March, April. Contrast this with the same figures for 1880,
1890, 1900. Learn two or three amusing anecdotes about adenoids.
Consult Bartlett's "Familiar Quotations" for appropriate verses dealing
with tonsils and throat troubles. Finally, and above all, take time to

glance through four or five volumes of Dr. Eliot's Five Foot Shelf, for
nothing so completely marks the cultivated man as the ability to refer
familiarly to the various volumes of the Harvard classics.
A PROPER CALL
Promptly at the time appointed you should arrive at the house where
the young lady is staying. In answer to your ring a German police dog
will begin to bark furiously inside the house, and a maid will finally
come to the door. Removing your hat and one glove, you say, "Is Miss
Doe home?" The maid replies, "Yass, ay tank so." You give her your
card and the dog rushes out and bites you on either the right or left leg.
You are then ushered into a room in which is seated an old man with a
long white beard. He is fast asleep. "Dot's grampaw," says the maid, to
which you reply, "Oh." She retires, leaving you alone with grampaw.
After a while he opens his eyes and stares at you for a few minutes. He
then says, "Did the dog bite you?" You answer, "Yes, sir." Grampaw
then says, "He bites everybody," and goes back to sleep. Reassured,
you light a cigaret. A little boy and girl then come to the door, and,
after examining you carefully for several minutes, they burst into
giggling laughter and run away. You feel to see if you have forgotten to
put on a necktie. A severe looking old lady then enters the room. You
rise and bow. "I am Miss Doe's grandmother. Some one has been
smoking in here," she says, and sits down opposite you. Her remark is
not, however, a hint for a cigaret and you should not make the mistake
of saying, "I've only got Fatimas, but if you care to try one--" It should
be your aim to seek to impress yourself favorably upon every member
of the young lady's family. Try to engage the grandmother in
conversation, taking care to select subjects in which you feel she would
be interested. Conversation is largely the art of "playing up" to the
other person's favorite subject. In this particular case, for example, it
would be a mistake to say to Miss Doe's grandmother, "Have you ever
tried making synthetic gin?" or "Do you think any one will EVER lick
Dempsey?" A more experienced person, and some one who had studied
the hobbies of old people, would probably begin by remarking, "Well, I
see that Jeremiah Smith died of cancer Thursday," or "That was a
lovely burial they gave Mrs. Watts, wasn't it?" If you are tactful, you

should soon win the old lady's favor completely, so that before long she
will tell you all about her rheumatism and what grampaw can and can't
eat.
Finally Miss Doe arrives. Her first words are, "Have you been waiting
long? Hilda didn't tell me you were here," to which you reply, "No--I
just arrived." She then says, "Shall we go in the drawing-room?" The
answer to this is, "For God's sake, yes!" In a few minutes you find
yourself alone in the drawing-room with the lady of your choice and
the courtship proper can then begin.
The best way to proceed is gradually to bring the conversation around
to the subject of the "modern girl." After your preliminary remarks
about tonsils and adenoids have been thoroughly exhausted, you should
suddenly say, "Well I don't think girls--nice girls--are really that way."
She replies, of course, "WHAT way?" You answer, "Oh, the way they
are in these modern novels. This "petting,' for instance." She says,
"WHAT "petting'?" You walk over and sit down on the sofa beside her.
"Oh," you say, "these novelists