From the point of view of sentiment, a dinner has less potentialities than a dance; but the dinner may begin what the dance will end; you set light to the fuse in the dining-room, and the explosion takes place six weeks afterwards in someone-else's conservatory. Nothing much can be done on the staircase; but, if you can decently pretend that you have heard of the young man who is taking you in, he will probably like it. If, after a few minutes, you decide that it is worth while to interest the young man, discourage his flat badinage, and encourage his personal brag. The only thing in which it is quite certain that every man will be interested is, the interest someone else takes in him. Later on, he will probably be induced to illustrate the topic of conversation by telling you (if it would not bore you) of a little incident which happened to himself. The incident will be prettily coloured for dinner-table use, and he will make the story prove a merit in himself, which he will take care to disclaim vainly. When he has finished, look very meditatively at your plate, as if you saw visions in it, and then turn on him suddenly with wide eyes--with the right kind of eyelashes, this is effective. "I suppose you don't know it, Mr. BLANK," you tell him, "but really I can't help saying it. You behaved splendidly--splendidly!" Droop the eyelashes quickly, and become meditative again. He will deprecate your compliment a little incoherently. "Not at all, not at all--Miss--er--ASTERISK--I really--assure you--nothing more than any--er--other man would have done. Some other people at the time told me"--(_laughs nervously_)--"very much--er--what you have just said, but--er--personally, I--really--could never see it, or of course I wouldn't have mentioned it to you." Your rejoinder will depend a good deal on how far you mean to go, and how much of that kind of thing you think you can stand. If you like, you can drop your handkerchief or your glove when you rise; it will please him to pick it up for you, and he will feel, for a moment, as if he had saved your life. If you do not want to please the man, but only to show your own superiority, it may perhaps be as well to remember that women are better than men, as a rule, in flat badinage. Men talk best when they are by themselves, but they are liable to be painfully natural at such times. I had some little difficulty in finding this out, but I thought it my duty to know, and--well, I _do_ know.