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. For all I know to the contrary, prominent hostesses along the Gold Coast of the United States--Bar Harbor to Palm Beach inclusive--may have been serving one lone vegetable as a separate course for years and years; but I feel sure that throughout the interior the disclosure will come as a pleasant surprise. The directions for executing this coup are simple and all the deadlier because they are so simple. The main thing is to invite your chief opponent as a smart entertainer; you know the one I mean--the woman who scored such a distinct social triumph in the season of 1912-13 by being the first woman in town to serve tomato bisque with whipped cream on it. Have her there by all means. Go ahead with your dinner as though naught sensational and revolutionary were about to happen. Give them in proper turn the oysters, the fish, the entree, the bird, the salad. And then, all by itself, alone and unafraid, bring on a dab of string-beans. Wait until you see the whites of their eyes, and aim and fire at will. Settle back then, until the first hushed shock has somewhat abated--until your dazed and suffering rival is glaring about in a well-bred but flustered manner, looking for something to go with the beans. Hold her eye while you smile a smile that is compounded of equal parts--superior wisdom, and gentle contempt for her ignorance--and then slowly, deliberately, dip a fork into the beans on your plate and go to it.