Port, sherry, and madeira, are decanted. Hocks and champagnes appear in their native bottles. Claret and burgundy are handed round in a claret-jug.
The servants leave the room when the dessert is on the table.
Coffee and liqueurs should be handed round when the dessert has been about a quarter of an hour on the table. After this, the ladies generally retire.
The lady of the house should never send away her plate, or appear to have done eating, till all her guests have finished.
If you should unfortunately overturn or break anything, do not apologize for it. You can show your regret in your face, but it is not well-bred to put it into words.
To abstain from taking the last piece on the dish, or the last glass of wine in the decanter, only because it is the last, is highly ill-bred. It implies a fear on your part that the vacancy cannot be supplied, and almost conveys an affront to your host.
To those ladies who have houses and servants at command, we have one or two remarks to offer. Every housekeeper should be acquainted with the routine of a dinner and the etiquette of a dinner-table. No lady should be utterly dependent on the taste and judgment of her cook. Though she need not know how to dress a dish, she should be able to judge of it when served. The mistress of a house, in short, should be to her cook what a publisher is to his authors—that is to say, competent to form a judgment upon their works, though himself incapable of writing even a magazine article.
If you wish to give a good dinner, and do not know in what manner to set about it, you will do wisely to order it from Birch, Kühn, or any other first-rate restaurateur. By these means you ensure the best cookery and a faultless carte.
Bear in mind that it is your duty to entertain your friends in the best manner that your means permit. This is the least you can do to recompense them for the expenditure of time and money which they incur in accepting your invitation.
"To invite a friend to dinner," says Brillat Savarin, "is to become responsible for his happiness so long as he is under your roof." Again:—"He who receives friends at his table, without having bestowed his personal supervision upon the repast placed before them, is unworthy to have friends."