If, at a dinner, food is passed to you which you do not care to eat, it is good form to take a generous heap of it, to pat it and mess it up on your plate with a fork.
After dinner, if a lady has been asked to sing and refused, do not urge her further. It is the height of bad manners, and there is just the off chance that she may yield.
In England the matter of precedence at dinners is simplicity itself. The Sovereign precedes an ambassador, who precedes the Archbishop of Canterbury, who precedes the Earl Marshal, who precedes a duke, who precedes an earl, a marquis, a viscount, a bishop, a baron, etc.; but in America the matter is a much more perplexing one.
The author of this brochure respectfully suggests the following scheme of American dinner precedence: Let an opera box count 6 points; steam yacht, 5; town house, 5; country house, 4; motors, 3 each; every million dollars, 2; tiara, 1; good wine cellar, 1; ballroom in town house, 1; a known grandparent of either sex, ½; culture, ⅛. By this system, a woman of culture with four known grandparents and a million dollars will have a total of 4⅛. She will, of course, be forced to follow in the wake of a lady with a town house and a tiara (6); who, in turn, will trail after a woman with a steam yacht and two motors (11). The highest known total is about 100; the lowest, about ⅛. The housekeeper may arrange the totals, and the hostess can then send the guests in according to their listed quotations.
People who arrive late at a large dinner sometimes have very quaint and amusing excuses. A hostess at a recent eight-o’clock banquet collected the following gems:
I overslept in my bath.
A cinder lodged in my eye and I have just come from the chemist’s.