There is a vast amount of ceremony and etiquette about a dinner and various rules for eating, to break which is a social offense. I heard that a certain Madam ---- gave lessons in "good form" after the American fashion, so that one could learn what was expected, and at my first dinner I regretted that I had not availed myself of the services of the lady, as at each plate there were nearly a dozen solid silver articles to be used in the different courses, but I endeavored to escape by watching my companion and following her example. But here the impossibility of an American girl resisting a joke caused my downfall. She at once saw my dilemma, and would take up the wrong implement, and when I followed suit she dropped it and took another, laughing in her eyes in a way in which the American girl is a prodigious adept; but completely deceived by her nearly every time, knowing that she was amusing herself at my expense, I said nothing. The Americans have a peculiar term for the mental attitude I had during this trial. I "sawed wood." The saying was particularly applicable to my situation. My young companion was most engaging, and presently began to talk of the superiority of America, her inventions, etc., mentioning the telephone, printing, and others. "Yes, wonderful," I replied; "but the Chinese had the telephone ages ago. They invented printing, gunpowder, the mariner's compass, and it would be difficult," I said, "for you to mention an object which China has not had for ages." She was amazed that I, a Chinaman, should "claim everything in sight."
There is a peculiar etiquette relating to every course in a dinner. The soup is eaten with a bowl-like spoon, and it is the grossest breach to place this in your mouth, or approach it, endwise. You approach the side and suck the soup from it. To make a noise would attract attention. The etiquette of the fish is to eat it with a fork; to use the knife even to cut the fish would be unpardonable, or to touch it to take out the bones; the fork alone must be used. The punch course is often an embarrassment to the previous wines, and is followed by what the French call the _entrée_. In fact, while the Americans boast that everything American is the best, French customs are followed at banquets invariably, this being one of the strange inconsistencies of the Americans. Their clothes are copied from the English, though they will claim in the same breath that their tailors are the best in the world. For wines they claim to be unsurpassed, producing the finest; yet the wines on their tables are French or bear French labels. Game is served--a grouse or perhaps a hare, and then a vast roast, possibly venison, or beef, and there are vegetables, followed by a salad of some kind. Then comes the dessert--an iced cream, cakes, nuts, raisins, cheese, and coffee with brandy, and then cigars and vermuth or some cordial. After such a dinner of three hours a Southern gentleman clapped me on the back and said, "Great dinner, that; but let's go and get a drink of something solid," and I saw him take what he termed "two fingers" of Kentucky Bourbon whisky--a very stiff drink. I often wondered how the guests could stand so much.