The Washington herald., 1917-12-28
HOW TO POP THE QUESTION
BY DOROTHY
ny DOHOTHf DIN.
The Worlds Highest Paid Woman Writer.

! have a letter from bashful swain
! who asks me for the formula for a
marriage proposal.
| lie says that he Is very much in
! love with a girl and is anxious to ask
/ her to marry him. but that he does
not know in what words TO induce her
! TO go over the top with him and en-
gage in the great battle of matri-
mony.
You can't answer a question like
that categorically. There is no cut
and-dried phrase in which a man can
pop the question as there is for in
Producing people. or saying good night
after a party. Each man is supposed
to be so inspired by the time. the place
and the girl that he turns into poet
and woes the lady of his heart in
language so beautiful and impassion-
ed that nobody but q deaf woman
would resist it.
That Is the way men propose IN
novels and on the stage. Truth, alas,
compels us to admit that they do 1t
slightly differently in real life. In
actual experience, a man approaches
his great moment with clammy hands
and cold feet; he stammers and CUR
giles and chokes on his Adams apple.
and blurts out something that the
! woman only knows is a matrimonial
proposition because she has worked
him up to the scratch.
One of the secrets that no man ever
tells IS how he proposed to his wife.
To his dying day he is ashamed of
the way he muffed the ball Neither
does the wife ever tell. because the
way her husgand popped the question
to her is the blighting disappointment
Of her life. Ever since she could
toddle she had dreamed OF having
her little romantic hour as Juliet and
when 1t came it wasn't pink MOON
beams at all. 1t was corned beef and
cabbage, which Is good substantial
diet, but not a thing for your men,
ory to gloat over the balance of your
existence.
OF course. being a woman, and in
full sympathy with my sex on this
subject, / can but advise my cores
pondent to pop the question to his
| sweetheart In such a beautiful, ro-
mantle and poetic manner that she
will be proud to tell her great grand
children about it.
However. that is just a concession
to woman's love of frills and the
aesthetic. 1t is not a necessity. AS
a cold matter Of fact. what with the
high cost of living. the proneness of
the modern man to sidestep the altar
and the depleted supply of matri-
monial timber. it doesn't make much
difference nowadays how a man pro-
poses, Just so he does 1t.
So go to it. son, in the first words
that come to you. They will more
than likely take the trick. S.nd may
heaven bless you and preserve you.
Chevalier used to sing a charming
little cockney ditty In which the re-
frain was. "It wasn't what he said, 1t
was the narsty way he said it,
In popping the question the impor-
tant thing is not the thing a man
says, nor the way he says It, but when
he says 1t. Time. not eloquence. Is the
great psychological factor in the case.
Every woman with a grain of intelli-
gence in her head understands the
value Of time in dealing with men.
None but a fool woman would ever
ask a man for a new hat or tell him
the dry goods bill must be paid in the
awful fifteen minutes before dinner.
She would know that the announce
ment a man will take like a lamb
4
and drink, he will met like a sore
headed bear when he Is tired. cross
and hungry.
Women have likewise a chronology
cal chart by which they can be work.
ed. but men have not bothered to
study It. II they did. not only many a
family row would be avoided. but
there would be many more families.
for many a coy maiden's mo" could
be changed into Yes" IL her suitor
had enough intelligence to ask her at
the propitious melting moment.
For instance. asked a bachelor
girl friend of mine why she did not
marry a certain highly eligible gen.
tleman who had been faithfully court
ing her for years.
Because he hasn't got enough sense
to pop the question to me at the right
ume." she replied. HE invariably
proposes to me Just as 1 have made a
good business deal. or when I have on
new hat and dress and am feeling
fit and fine and ready to fight the
world for my own latch key. So say
NO" but II he would only watch my
moods and strike me when things
have gone wrong at the ofiice. or when
1t has rained and my skirts are limp
and bedraggled. and all I want is a
nice shoulder to cry on. why I'd say
Yes and thank you. too"
y Generally speaking. prosperity and
happiness turn a woman's thoughts
away from matrimony, while mis-
! fortune and sorrow incline her toward
It, When she Is pushing luck she is
) sufficient to herself. When luck is
Sgaanst her she feels the need of some