Polite Society

But in our polite society we have as yet found no better method than beginning with a sort of medical diagnosis—­“How do you do?” This admits of no answer.  Convention forbids us to reply in detail that we are feeling if anything slightly lower than last week, but that though our temperature has risen from ninety-one-fifty to ninety-one-seventy-five, our respiration is still normal.

Still worse is the weather as an opening topic.  For it either begins and ends as abruptly as the medical diagnosis, or it leads the two talkers on into a long and miserable discussion of the weather of yesterday, of the day before yesterday, of last month, of last year and the last fifty years.

Let one beware, however, of a conversation that begins too easily.

The Mutual Friends’ Opening

This can be seen at any evening reception, as when the hostess introduces two people who are supposed to have some special link to unite them at once with an instantaneous snap, as when, for instance, they both come from the same town.

“Let me introduce Mr. Sedley,” said the hostess.  “I think you and Mr. Sedley are from the same town, Miss Smiles.  Miss Smiles, Mr. Sedley.”

Off they go at a gallop.  “I’m so delighted to meet you,” says Mr. Sedley.  “It’s good to hear from anybody who comes from our little town.” (If he’s a rollicking humourist, Mr. Sedley calls it his little old “burg.”)

“Oh, yes,” answers Miss Smiles.  “I’m from Winnipeg too.  I was so anxious to meet you to ask if you knew the McGowans.  They’re my greatest friends at home.”

“The—­who?” asks Mr. Sedley.

“The McGowans—­on Selkirk Avenue.”

“No-o, I don’t think I do.  I know the Prices on Selkirk Avenue.  Of course you know them.”

“The Prices?  No, I don’t believe I do—­I don’t think I ever heard of the Prices.  You don’t mean the Pearsons?  I know them very well.”

“No, I don’t know the Pearsons.  The Prices live just near the reservoir.”

“No, then I’m sure I don’t know them.  The Pearsons live close to the college.”

“Close to the College?  Is it near the William Kennedys?”

“I don’t think I know the William Kennedys.”

This is the way the conversation goes on for ten minutes.  Both Mr. Sedley and Miss Smiles are getting desperate.  Their faces are fixed.  Their sentences are reduced to—­

“Do you know the Petersons?”

“No.  Do you know the Appleby’s?”

“No.  Do you know the Willie Johnsons?”

“No.”

Then at last comes a rift in the clouds.  One of them happens to mention Beverley Dixon.  The other is able to cry exultingly—­

“Beverley Dixon?  Oh, yes, rather.  At least, I don’t know him, but I used often to hear the Applebys speak of him.”