Place a salt cellar and a pepper pot in each corner of an imaginary square of which the plant is the center.
Arrange the side-table—or sideboard, if you have no side-table—with everything extra on it that will be needed during the meal, so that you will never have to open a drawer while you are serving it.
Put on this table, in nice order, so that it will look attractive, the dessert plates, on each of which is a finger bowl with a doily under it; also any cold plates such as salad plates, if they are to be used, and any extra forks, spoons, sauce ladles, etc., that will be required.
Fill the finger bowls a third full of water and place a fork and a spoon on the doily, one on one side, the other on the other, of the finger bowl.
Have also on the side-table a plate of bread, the pieces all cut the same size as those already on the dining-table.
Set a pitcher of iced water in a convenient place in pantry or dining-room.
Arrange a tray with the after-dinner coffee-cups on it and the bowl of lump sugar and sugar tongs in the center. Put an after-dinner coffee spoon on each saucer. Have this in pantry.
(The only spoon that is ever put with the forks and knives by the plates on the table is the soup spoon. Teaspoons for grapefruit, for bouillon, tea, coffee, etc., are always put on the plate or saucer on which these foods and drinks are served.)
When the dining- and side-tables are set and the first course ready to come into the dining-room, fill the tumblers with iced water.
Go into the pantry and pour each soup plate half full of soup.