Avoid meal times. If you inadvertently call at dinner or tea time, and your host is thus forced to invite you to the table, it is best to decline the civility. If, however, you see that you will give pleasure by staying, accept the invitation, but be careful to avoid calling again at the same hour.
No man in the United States, excepting His Excellency, the President, can expect to receive calls unless he returns them.
“Visiting,” says a French writer, “forms the cord which binds society together, and it is so firmly tied, that were the knot severed, society would perish.”
A ceremonious call should never extend over more than fifteen minutes, and it should not be less than ten minutes.
If you see the master of the house take letters or a paper from his pocket, look at the clock, have an absent air, beat time with his fingers or hands, or in any other way show weariness or ennui, you may safely conclude that it is time for you to leave, though you may not have been five minutes in the house. If you are host to the most wearisome visitor in existence, if he stays hours, and converses only on subjects which do not interest you, in the least; unless he is keeping you from an important engagement, you must not show the least sign of weariness. Listen to him politely, endeavor to entertain him, and preserve a smiling composure, though you may long to show him the door. In case he is keeping you from business of importance, or an imperative engagement, you may, without any infringement upon the laws of politeness, inform him of the fact, and beg him to excuse you; you must, however, express polite regret at your enforced want of hospitality, and invite him to call again.
It is quite an art to make a graceful exit after a call. To know how to choose the moment when you will be regretted, and to retire leaving your friends anxious for a repetition of the call, is an accomplishment worth acquiring.
When you begin to tire of your visit, you may generally feel sure that your entertainers are tired of you, and if you do not want to remain printed upon their memory as “the man who makes such long, tiresome calls,” you will retire.
If other callers come in before you leave a friend’s parlor, do not rise immediately as if you wished to avoid them, but remain seated a few moments, and then leave, that your hostess may not have too many visitors to entertain at one time.
If you have been enjoying a tête-à-tête interview with a lady, and other callers come in, do not hurry away, as if detected in a crime, but after a few courteous, graceful words, and the interchange of some pleasant remarks, leave her to entertain her other friends.
To endeavor when making a call to “sit out” others in the room, is very rude.