Perfect Behavior: A Guide for Ladies and Gentlemen in All Social Crises

At the end of the second hour, however, your mind should begin to clear, and if you are at all possessed of the qualifications for future ballroom leadership, you should gradually throw off the slough of despond and determine to make a fight for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And when the music has once more ceased, you should ask your partner if she would not care to take a jaunt in the open air. “I know a lovely walk,” you should say, “across a quaint old bridge.” The rest is, of course, easy. Arrived in the middle of the quaint old bridge, which leads across a cavern some three hundred feet deep, you should quickly seize the tall college graduate, and push her, not too roughly or ungentlemanly, off the bridge. And, if you are really a genius, and not merely “one of the crowd” you will return to the ballroom and, going up to the young lady who was responsible for your having met the sweet girl from South Orange, you will offer her your arm, and smile invitingly. “I know a lovely walk,” you will say, “across a quaint old bridge.”