Not alone the funny man whom the enfant terrible silenced by asking, "Mamma would like to know when you are going to begin to be funny," but those men who have the rare art of being leaders without seeming to be, who amuse without your suspecting that you are being amused; for there never should be anything professional in dinner-table wit.
The dinner giver has often to feel that something has been left out of the group about the table; they will not talk! She has furnished them with food and wine, but can she amuse them? Her witty man and her witty woman are both engaged elsewhere,—they are apt to be,—and her room is too warm, perhaps. She determines that at the next dinner she will have some mechanical adjuncts, even an empirical remedy against dulness. She tries a dinner card with poetical quotations, conundrums, and so on. The Shakspeare Club of Philadelphia inaugurated this custom, and some very witty results followed:—
"Enter Froth" (before champagne).
"What is thine age?" (Romeo and Juliet) brings in the Madeira.
LOBSTER SALAD.
"Who hath created this indigest?"
Pray you bid these unknown friends welcome, for it is a way to make us better friends.—Winter's Tale.
ROAST TURKEY.
See, here he comes swelling like a turkey cock.—Henry IV.
YORK HAMS.
Sweet stem from York's great stock.—Henry VI.
TONGUE.
Silence is only commendable in a neat's tongue dried— Merchant of Venice.
BRAISED LAMB AND BEEF.
What say you to a piece of lamb and mustard?—a dish that I do love to feed upon.—Taming of the Shrew.
LOBSTER SALAD.
Sallat was born to do me good.—Henry IV.