"So it has," said Whistlebinkie, reading the sign. "Let's go in there."
So the two little strangers walked into the dining-room, and certainly if the kitchen was droll in the matter of placards, the dining-room was more so, for directly over the table and suspended from the chandelier were these
Rules for Guests.
Guests will please remember to remove their hats before sitting down at the tabel.
Soup will not be helped more than three times to any guest, no matter who.
It is forbidding for guests to criticize the cooking, or to converse with the waiteress.
"Guest's will kindly not make fun of the host."
Guest's will kindly not contradict or make fun of their host, since he is very irritable and does not like to be contradicted or made fun of. Guests will oblige their host by not asking for anything that is not on the bill of fare. In a private house like this it would be very awkward to have to serve guests with fried potatoes at a time when ice-cream or mince pie has been ordered.
Horses and wheelbarrows are not aloud in this dining-room under any circumstances whatever.
Neither must cows or hay scales be brought here. Guests bringing their own olives will be charged extra. Also their own assalted ammonds. Spoons, platters, and gravy boats taken from the table must be paid for at market rates for articles so taken away.
Any guest caught violating any or all of these rules will not be aloud any dessert whatever; and a second voilition will deprive them of a forth helping to roast beef and raisins.
Yoors Tooly,
The Unwiseman.
N. G. Any guest desiring to substitute his own rules for the above is at libbity to do so, provided he furnishes his own dining-room.
"They're the most ridiculous rules I ever heard of," said Mollie, with a grin so broad that it made her ears uncomfortable. "The idea of having to tell anybody not to wear a hat at the table! He might just as well have made a rule forbidding people to throw plates on the floor."
"I dessay he would have, if he'd thought of it," returned Whistlebinkie. "But just look at these rules for the waitress. They are worse than the others." Then Whistlebinkie read off the rules the Unwiseman had made for the waitress, as follows:
Rules for the Waiteress.
1. Iced water must never be served boiling, nor under any circumstances must ice-cream come to the tabel fried to a crisp.
2. Waiteresses caught upsetting the roast beef on a guest's lap will be charged for the beef at the rate of $1.00 a pound, and will have to go to bed without her brekfist.
3. All cakes, except lady-fingers, must be served in the cake basket. The lady-fingers must be served in finger bowls, whether this is what the waiteress is used to or not. This is my dining-room, and I am the one to make the rules for it.
4. All waiteresses must wear caps. Their caps must be lace caps, and not yotting caps, tennis caps, or gun caps. The caps must be worn on the head, and not on the hands or feet. All waiteresses caught voilating this rule will not be allowed any pie for eight weeks.
5. Meals must not be served until they are ready, and such silly jokes as putting an empty soup tureen on the table for the purpose of fooling me will be looked upon with disfavor and not laughed at.
6. Waiteresses must never invite their friends here to take dinner with me unless I am out, and they mustn't do it then either, because this is my dining-room, and I can wear it out quick enough without any outside help.
7. Waiteresses must not whistle while waitering on the tabel, because it isn't proper that they should. Besides, girls can't whistle, anyhow.
8. At all meals dessert must be served at every other course. In serving a dinner this course should be followed: