A self-making man in process of manufacture, dined with a more sophisticated friend at a city restaurant. When the soup was brought on, the S. M. M. prepared for business by laying a slice of bread on the cloth, and troweling it with butter. His host, who had been requested by the guest to “coach him a little in city ways,” said mildly:
“That isn’t quite the thing, old man! Break off a bit of bread and butter it, as you wish to eat it.”
“All right!” said the other, “I want to know about the latest touches.”
His next solecism was to fish up a bit of meat from the dish with his own fork, and his friend again set him right. Blunder No. 3 was putting his knife into his mouth; No. 4 was cutting up his salad; No. 5, sandwiching cheese between two crackers and crunching it noisily; No. 6 was creaming black coffee.
“I say!” he broke in at this point, still good-humoredly, “what do you call all these fool rules you’ve been telling me? I s’pose a fellow ought to know something about them. But they come hard, at first.”
“I suppose,” said the mentor, somewhat nonplussed, “that they may all be classed under the head of table etiquette.”
“Et-er-ket!” slowly and thoughtfully. “Well, I say, old fellow—there ain’t many that has got on to it yet—is there?” Resisting the temptation to dwell upon the many who never “get on to it,” let us look for the commonsensible basis of certain minor social usages which are accepted as matters of course by well-bred people, and contemned by the boorish and ignorant as “fool rules” that hamper personal liberty.
Few conventionalities are arbitrary. Most of them are reasonable, many so just as to be binding upon the lovers of decency and order, not to say healthfulness.
To carry food to the mouth with the knife-blade is awkward, and if the knife have an edge, unsafe. If I were at the point of death, I should laugh and blush together at the memory of the commotion excited in a London family hotel last year by the exclamation of an American tourist who jumped up from the dinner-table and clapped his napkin to his mouth with—“Waiter! Never put a sharp knife at my place again! I have cut my mouth badly! It might have done serious harm!”
The rule against touching fish with a knife dates back to a time when steel knives were in general use. Steel imparts an unpleasant taste to the more delicate kinds of cooked fish. Hence, the custom of leaving the knife beside the plate, and using the fork alone during the fish course.