A soft-footed maid ushered me into the chintzy, many-windowed living room of the Post apartment, where the World's Leading Authority on Etiquette held out her hand and said, "How nice of you to be so exactly on time." Having sat up half the night with her book, cramming my tousled pate full of such edicts as "A Lady Is Always Punctual," I had been so hell-bent on punctuality that I'd arrived in the downstairs lobby of the big hushed co-operative apartment building a full forty minutes early. Then I'd crouched, waiting, so that as the clock struck the hour, I could pop out like a cuckoo.

"Spilling Tea with Emily Post" (