THE PROPOSAL, A LA PASHA
If you think it demeaning and ignoble to be loved for your pelf alone, try to remember that no girl accustomed to the sort of things which she is forever seeing advertised, is going to marry a man who never gives her anything but roses, and, here and there, a chocolate or two. In giving presents to the little dear, try always to stick to jewels. True love thrives best in a young lady’s bosom, on a diet of pearls, rubies, emeralds, sapphires and diamonds. Oh, and another thing! If she marries you, you have a half equity in the stones. If she doesn’t marry you, you can force her mother to return them. Flowers fade! Bonbons vanish. But good diamonds shine on forever.
THE PROPOSAL BY TELEPHONE
In a great progressive city like ours, especially with stocks jumping up about five points a day—you can’t very well expect a chap to leave the stock-ticker in his club or in his café, trot up to the social zone and loaf round a girl’s house all day. And that merely to propose to her as soon as she has—at the end of an hour or so—consented to dress and give her hair and complexion the careful treatment which she always has to give them when she receives visitors. This is a very busy little world and a proposal over the wire often saves an immense amount of time—and sometimes two or three points margin at your brokers’. So, wherever she is, telephone! Don’t waste time. Call her up anywhere, even in her bedroom. This little sketch shows the delightfully intimate relationship which is sometimes established between the dining-room at a man’s Club and the bathing pavilion contiguous to a lady’s sleeping room. It was a scene such as this that inspired the composer who in a moment of supreme inspiration, wrote that lyrical gem entitled “Hullo, Central, Give Me Heaven.” In proposing by telephone, it is of course just as well to get the right girl on the wire. A friend of ours recently became a trifle confused—after being accepted by a female voice, to learn that the houri at the other end of the telephone was no less a dignitary than his lady-love’s maiden aunt.
Darling Gladys
I love you
Like nothing on Earth!
Will you be mine?
Back in ’alf a mo’
yours ever OR
For the duration of war
PERCY
THE PROPOSAL BY PHONOGRAPH
Our new, exclusive, patented, and correct model for diffident bachelors. No more plucking of marguerites (she loves me, she loves my car, etc.). No more tortured proposals on the knees (ruining the fit of the new trousers). If she accepts, she writes to you. If she refuses, she files the record along with her latest Hawaiian Aloha song. In buying your proposal records, insist on having the phonograph people insert your name and hers on the discs,—without charge. The names can be added in less than ten minutes’ time. If you are a busy man, you can of course order your records by the dozen—merely cautioning the makers to use the names of as many girls as you happen to be wooing at the time. You can then distribute the records to the girls and await developments. In case you should happen to receive two or more acceptances, the simplest method is to toss a coin.
