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of it.” This may be very sensible, but it will seem to many persons, as it does to the writer, to be very senseless. By and by the fork mania will banish the spoon altogether.

      In a late number of the London Queen this fork-and-spoon question is discussed as follows: “But to go back to the debatable lands of our own compatriots, and the odd things that some do, and the undecided cases that still give rise to controversy. There is that battlefield of the fork and the spoon, and whether the former ought to be used for all sweets whatsoever, with the exception of custard and gooseberry food, which answer the question for themselves; or whether it is not better to use a spoon where slipperiness is an element, and ‘the solution of continuity’ a condition. Some people hunt their ice, for example, with a fork, which lets the melting margin drop through the prongs; and some stick their small trident into jelly, at the risk of seeing the whole thing slip off like an amorphous, translucent, gold-colored snake. The same with such compounds as custard pudding, crème renversée, and the like, where it is a feat of skill to skewer the separate morsels deftly, and where a small sea of unutilized juice is left on the plate. This monotonous use of the fork and craven fear of the vulgarity lying in the spoon seems to us mere table snobbery. It is a well-known English axiom that the fork is to be used in preference to the spoon when possible and convenient. But the people who use it always – when scarcely possible and decidedly inconvenient – are people so desperately afraid of not doing the right thing, that they do the wrong out of very flunkeyism and of fear of Mrs. Grundy in the corner. It is the same with the law of eating all soft meats with the fork only, abjuring the knife. On the one hand, you will see people courageously hewing with their knives at sweetbread, suprême de volaille, and the like; on the other, the snobbish fine work themselves into a fever with their forks against a cutlet, and would not for the lives of them use a knife to cut with ease that which by main force and at great discomfort they can tear asunder with a fork.”

      If you have occasion to help yourself from a dish, or if any one else helps you, move your plate quite close to the dish.

      At a dinner served in courses, it is better, as a rule, not to take a second supply of anything. It might delay the dinner.

      The English eat boiled eggs from the shell, a custom that is followed to some extent in this country; but most Americans prefer to break them, or to have them broken, into a glass, a mode that certainly has its advantages, and that will commend itself to those that have not time to dawdle over their breakfast. In noticing a little book on manners that recently appeared, the New York Sun feelingly inveighs in this wise against eating boiled eggs from a glass:

      “We are glad to think that the time has gone by when Americans with any pretensions to refinement needed to be informed that an egg beaten up in a glass is an unsightly mess that has often turned the stomach of the squeamish looker-on. Those who cannot learn to eat boiled eggs from the shell will do well to avoid them altogether. If the author of this hand-book had watched American experiments with exhaustive attention, he might have deemed it well to add that no part of the contents of the egg should be allowed to drip down the outside of the shell, and that the eggshell, when depleted, should be broken before being deposited on the plate.”

      It would seem to be as unpleasant to the writer of this paragraph to see an egg eaten from a glass as it is to a Bavarian to see a man wait till he gets over the threshold of a lager-beer saloon before he takes his hat off. A matter of mere prejudice in both cases. If an egg broken into a glass is really “an unsightly mess,” then let us have some opaque egg-glasses.

      Bread should be broken. To butter a large piece of bread and then bite it, as children do, is something the knowing never do.

      In eating game or poultry do not touch the bones with your fingers. To take a bone in the fingers for the purpose of picking it is looked upon as being a very inelegant proceeding.

      Never gesticulate with your knife or fork in your hand, nor hold them pointing upward when you are not using them; keep them down on your plate.

      Never load up your fork with food until you are ready to convey it to your mouth, unless you are famishing and you think your life depends on your not losing a second.

      Never put your own knife into the butter or the salt if there is a butter-knife and a salt-spoon. If you are compelled to use your own knife, first wipe it as clean as possible on your bread.

      Never use your own knife or fork to help another. Use rather the knife or fork of the person you help.

      Never send your knife and fork, or either of them, on your plate when you send for a second supply. There are several good reasons for not doing so, and not one good reason for doing so. Never hold your knife and fork meanwhile in your hand, either, but lay them down, and that, too, with something under them – a piece of bread, for example – to protect the table-cloth. Never carry your food to your mouth with any curves or flourishes, unless you want to look as though you were airing your company manners. Better a pound of awkwardness at any time than an ounce of self-consciousness.

      Never use a steel knife to cut fruit if there is a silver one.

      Never stick your elbows out when you use your knife and fork. Keep them close to your sides.

      Having finished using your knife and fork, lay them on your plate, side by side, with the handles pointing a little to your right. This will be taken by an experienced waiter as an intimation that you are ready to have your plate removed.

      Whenever you use the fingers to convey anything to the mouth or to remove anything from the mouth, let it be the fingers of the left hand.

      When you eat a fruit that has a pit or a skin that is not swallowed, the pit or skin must be removed from the mouth with the fingers of the left hand, or with a spoon or fork in the right. Any other mode is most offensive.

      Tea, coffee, chocolate and the like are drunk from the cup and never from the saucer. Put your spoon in the saucer should you send your cup to be refilled; otherwise, it may be left in the cup. Never blow your tea or coffee; if it is too hot to be drunk, wait till it cools.

      In handling glasses, keep your fingers a goodly distance from the top, but do not go to the other extreme; and if you handle a goblet or a wine-glass, take hold of the stem only. Take hold of the bowl just above the stem.

      In helping yourself to butter, take at once as much as you think you shall require, and try to leave the roll in as good shape as you find it. In returning the knife, do not stick it into the roll, but lay it on the side of the plate.

      In masticating your food, keep your mouth shut; otherwise you will make a noise that will be very offensive to those around you.

      Don’t eat in a mincing, dainty manner, as though you had no appetite, nor devour your food as though you were famishing. Eat as though you relished your food, but not as though you were afraid you would not get enough.

      Don’t attempt to talk with a full mouth. One thing at a time is as much as any man can do well.

      Few men talk well when they do nothing else, and few men chew their food well when they have nothing else to do.

      Partake sparingly of delicacies, which are generally served in small quantities, and decline them if offered a second time.

      Should you find a worm or an insect in your salad or in a plate of fruit, hand your plate to a waiter, without comment, and he will bring you another.

      See that the lady that you escorted to the table is well helped. Anticipate her wants, if possible.

      Never tip your chair, nor lounge back in it, nor put your thumbs in the arm holes of your waistcoat.

      Never hitch up your sleeves, as some men have the habit of doing, as though you were going to make mud pies.

      If the conversation tends to be general – and it should tend to be general at a small dinner-party – take good heed that you, at least, listen, which is the only sure way I know of for every man to appear to advantage.

      Never, under any circumstances, no matter where you are, cry out “Waiter!” No man of any breeding ever does it. Wait till you can catch the attendant’s eye, and by a nod bring him to you.

      Unless you are asked to do so,

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