So, wearing the manner of one who has been accustomed all his life
to finishing off his dinner with a mess of string-beans, I used my
putting-iron; and from the edge of the fair green I holed out in
three. My last stroke was a dandy, if I do say it myself. The
others were game too - I could see that. They were eating beans
as though beans were particularly what they had come for. Out of
the tail of my eye I glanced at our hostess, sitting next to me
on the left. She was placid, calm, perfectly easy. Again addressing
myself mentally I said:
"There's a thoroughbred for you! You take a woman who got prosperous
suddenly and is still acutely suffering from nervous culture, and
if such a shipwreck had occurred at her dinner table she'd be
utterly prostrated by now - she'd be down and out - and we'd all be
standing back to give her air; but when they're born in the purple
it shows in these big emergencies. Look at this woman now - not a
ripple on the surface - balmy as a summer evening! But in about one
hour from now, Central European time, I can see her accepting that
fool butler's resignation before he's had time to offer it!"
After the beans had been cleared off the right-of-way we had the
dessert and the cheese and the coffee and the rest of it. And,
as we used to say in the society column down home when the wife
of the largest advertiser was entertaining, "at a suitable hour
those present dispersed to their homes, one and all voting the
affair to have been one of the most enjoyable occasions among like
events of the season." We all knew our manners - we had proved that.
Personally I was very proud of myself for having carried the thing
off so well but after I had survived a few tables d'hote in France
and a few more in Austria and a great many in Italy, where they
do not have anything at the hotels except tables d'hote, I did not
feel quite so proud. For at this writing in those parts the
slender, sylphlike string-bean is not playing a minor part, as
with us. He has the best spot on the evening bill - he is a
headliner. So is the cauliflower; so is the Brussels sprout; so
is any vegetable whose function among our own people is largely
scenic.
Therefore I treasured the memory of this incident and brought it
back with me; and I tell it here at some length of detail because
I know how grateful my countrywomen will be to get hold of it - I
know how grateful they always are when they learn about a new
gastronomical wrinkle. Mind you, I am not saying that the notion
is an absolute novelty here.
