It is distressing, in these days of short sight and small rooms, to see several couples wandering about endeavouring to decipher the names on the small cards.
It is much better for the host to have made himself master of the order in which the guests are to be seated, and as he enters the dining-room first with the lady of highest social importance, he is ready to point out their places to each couple as they enter.
The first thing to be done on sitting down is to unfold the table napkin and place it across the knee. The menu is then consulted, and a mental note made of any favourite dish, so that it may not be refused. But all the time a flow of small talk must be kept up with one’s partner of the hour. Sometimes she turns to talk with the man on her right. Then her escort may converse with the lady on his left, if she is disengaged. But he must always remember that his first duty is to her whom he took down.
There will probably be three or four wineglasses on our young friend’s right. One of these--either a long-stemmed, wide-cupped glass or a small tumbler--is for champagne. The coloured glass is for hock, the slenderest and smallest is for sherry, and the claret-glass occupies in dimensions a midway between those of the champagne and claret-glass.
With regard to the knives and forks, everything is now made very easy for the novice by the way in which the table is laid.
The tablespoon is for soup, which must be eaten from the side of the spoon close to the point. The fish knife and fork are placed outside the others, so as to be ready to the hand, the fish course coming directly after the soup.
The dishes are usually all handed round at dinner-parties, the carving being done at the sideboard or in an immediately adjoining room, but sometimes the host carves the joint and game.
There is occasionally a subtle reason for this preference, not wholly unconnected with a taste for those morsels that especially appeal to the gourmand. The host may desire to secure these for some special, appreciative guest--or for himself! In some families the principal dishes are always placed before the master of the house to be carved. Maidservants can rarely carve well, and butlers have gone considerably out of fashion in the upper middle classes of society of late years.