If the crap game goes particularly well, many hosts do not hesitate to provide elaborate refreshments for the guests. Here, too, the spirit of fun and jollity should prevail, and great merriment is always provoked by the ludicrous expression of the guest who has broken two teeth on the cast-iron olive. Other delightful surprises should be arranged, and a little Sloan’s liniment in the punch or ground glass in the ice cream will go a long way toward making the supper amusing. And finally, when the guests are ready to depart and just before they discover that you have cut cute little black cats and witches out of the backs of their evening wraps and over coats, it would perhaps be well to run up stairs and lock yourself securely in your room.
CHAPTER EIGHT:
CORRESPONDENCE AND INVITATIONS
CORRESPONDENCE
It is narrated of a well-known English lady (who is noted on the other side of the Atlantic for the sharpness of her wit) that on one occasion, when a vainglorious American was boasting of his country’s prowess in digging the Panama Canal, she calmly waited until he had finished and then replied, with an indescribable smile, “Ah—but you Americans do not know how to write letters.” Needless to say the discomfited young man took himself off at the earliest opportunity.
There is much truth, alas, in the English lady’s clever retort, for the automatic typewriter, the telegraph, and the penny postal card have done much to cause a gradual decline in the gentle art of correspondence. As one American woman recently remarked to a visitor (with more wit, however, than good taste), “Yes, we do have correspondents here—but they are all in the divorce courts.”
CORRESPONDENCE FOR YOUNG LADIES
There are certain rules in regard to correct letter-writing which must be followed by all who would “take their pen in hand.” Young people are the most apt to offend in this respect against the accepted canons of good taste and it is to these that I would first address the contents of this chapter. A young girl often lets her high spirits run away with her amour propre, with the result that her letters, especially those addressed to strangers, are often lacking in that dignity which is the sine qua non of correct correspondence.
Consider, for example, the following two letters composed by Miss Florence ......, a debutante of New York City, who is writing to a taxidermist thanking him for his neat work in having recently stuffed her deceased pet Alice. The first of these letters illustrates the evil to which I have just referred, viz., the complete absence of proper dignity. The second, written with the aid of her mama, whose experience in social affairs has been considerable, shows the correct method of corresponding with comparative strangers.
An Incorrect Letter from a Débutante to a Taxidermist Thanking Him for Having Stuffed Her Pet Alice
DEAR MR. Epps:
Aren’t you an old peach to have gone and stuffed Alice so prettily! Really, Mr. Epps, I never saw such a knockout piece of taxidermy, even in Europe, and I simply adore it. Mother gave a dinner party last night and everybody was just wild about it and wanted to know who had done it. How on earth did you manage to get the wings to stay like that? And the eyes are just too priceless for words. Honestly, every time I look at it, it’s so darned natural that I can’t believe Alice is really dead. I guess you must be pretty dog-goned crazy about birds yourself to have done such a lovely job on Alice, and I guess you know how perfectly sick I was over her death. Honestly, Mr. Epps, she was such a peach of an owl. But I suppose it had to be, and anyway, thanks just heaps for having done such a really perfectly gorgeous bit of taxidermy.