Never sit six feet off from the table, nor yet so crunched up against it as to cause you indescribable torture. Well within feeding distance, with ample elbow-room for knife-and-fork play, is your safest rule.
Never tuck your napkin all around under your collar-band, nor make a child’s bib of it. You are not in a barber’s chair nor at a baby-farm.
Never suck up your soup with a straw, nor, with your elbows on the table and the plate-rim at your lips, drink it down with happy gurgles and impetuous haste. Go for it with a spoon for all you are worth. Never ask for more than a fourth service of soup.
Never bury your nose in your plate, while using your knife, fork and spoon at the same time, after the manner of Chinese chop-sticks. Maintain as erect an attitude as you can without endangering your spinal column, though not as if you had swallowed a poker.
Never exhibit surprise or irritation, should you overturn your soup in your lap. Rise majestically, and while the waiter is wiping it off, calmly declare that you were born under a lucky star, since not a drop has spattered your clothes.
Never snap off your bread in enormous chunks, to be filtered and washed down by gravy or wine. Rather than this, crumb it off into pellets, to be skillfully tossed into the mouth as occasion may demand.
Never ram your knife more than half-way down your throat. Hack with your knife, claw up with your fork; that is what they’re made for. Never take up a great meat-slice on your fork, and then leisurely nibble around the corners, making steady inroads till your teeth strike silver. This is a method rigidly interdicted among the highest circles.
Never eat fish with a spoon, if the silver butter-knife can be appropriated for that purpose.
Never eat as if you had bet high on getting away with the entire banquet in six minutes and a half. This may be complimentary to the viands, but is somewhat vulgar.
Never, when the champagne begins to circulate, snatch the bottle from the waiter’s hand, hang on to the nozzle, tilt up the butt, and ingurgitate for dear life, while approvingly patting your stomach with your disengaged hand. This is little short of an enormity.