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 make me sick—they seem to think
that in our generation every time a young man and woman are left
alone on a lounge together, they haven’t a thing better to do
than put out the light and ‘pet.’ It’s disgusting, isn’t it?”
“Isn’t it?” she agrees and reaching over she accidentally pulls
the lamp cord, which puts out the light.
On your first visit you should not stay after 12:30.