him, but I used often to hear the Applebys speak of him."

   And the other exclaims with equal delight—

   "I don't know him very well either, but I used to hear
the Willie Johnsons talk about him all the time."

   They are saved.

   Half an hour after they are still standing there talking
of Beverly Dixon.

   The Etiquette Book

   Personally I have suffered so much from inability to
begin a conversation that not long ago I took the extreme
step of buying a book on the subject. I regret to say
that I got but little light or help from it. It was
written by the Comtesse de Z—. According to the preface
the Comtesse had "moved in the highest circles of all
the European capitals." If so, let her go on moving there.
I for one, after trying her book, shall never stop her.
This is how the Comtesse solves the problem of opening
a conversation:

   "In commencing a conversation, the greatest care should
be devoted to the selection of a topic, good taste
demanding that one should sedulously avoid any subject
of which one's vis-a-vis may be in ignorance. Nor are
the mere words alone to be considered. In the art of
conversation much depends upon manner. The true
conversationalist must, in opening, invest himself with
an atmosphere of interest and solicitude. He must, as we
say in French, be prepared to payer les rais de la
conversation. In short, he must 'give himself an air.'"

   There! Go and do it if you can. I admit that I can't. I
have no idea what the French phrase above means, but I
know that personally I cannot "invest myself with an
atmosphere of interest." I might manage about two per

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