Cards should lie at each place with the menu written out as in the first one printed below, with the names of the authors omitted, and before each course, or while one is eaten the next dish is to be guessed, and the author named. A prize might be offered for the most numerous guesses which are correct. The hostess would do well to have the key to the menu by her plate.

The table decorations may be of an ordinary character, such as a bunch of roses in the middle, or a vase of asters or chrysanthemums, and the usual pretty doilies and odd dishes about, or, if laurel is to be had, either the flowers or the leaves may be used to suggest the crowning of genius.

MENU

1.Toilers of the Sea. (Victor Hugo.)
2.A Study in Scarlet. (Doyle.)
3.The Water Babies. (Kingsley.)
4.Between Whiles. (Helen Hunt Jackson.)
5.The Lay of the Last Minstrel. (Scott.)
6.A Dead Secret (Wilkie Collins); and Plain Tales from the Hills. (Kipling.)
7.The Desert of Ice. (Jules Verne.)
8.Leaves of Grass (Walt Whitman); and Unleavened Bread. (Grant.)
9.The Snow Image. (Hawthorne.)
10.Over the Teacups. (Holmes.)
11.Opening of a Chestnut Burr. (Roe.)
12.All's Well that Ends Well. (Shakespeare.)

The culinary key to the luncheon is this:—

1.Oysters.
2.Tomato Soup.
3.Smelts with Sauce Tartare.
4.Almonds. Radishes. Celery.
5.Eggs in Ramekins.
6.Chicken Chartreuse and Potatoes.
7.Peach Sherbet.
8.Shredded Lettuce and Crackers.
9.Ice Cream in Forms.
10.Tea.
11. and 12.Marrons and Bonbons.

The eggs are prepared by cutting up those that have been hard boiled, seasoning them well, covering with white sauce, putting in individual baking dishes, covering with grated cheese, and browning. The chicken is minced, seasoned with salt, pepper, and a little sherry or stewed tomato, and put in a melon mould which has been buttered and lined with an inch thickness of boiled rice; then the mould is steamed for three quarters of an hour, and when done the whole is turned out on a round platter, and a tomato sauce is poured around it.

The salad is made by cutting a head of lettuce across with the scissors until leaves of grass result; mayonnaise is to be passed with this.

The ice cream is to be in forms of any sort, but the figure of a man is the most appropriate.