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

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.