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.

Knives and forks.

Taking soup.

Carving.

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.

Choice of dishes and wines.

When offered the usual choice of dishes or wines, the guest must decide at once and indicate his choice without delay. Any hesitation gives him the air of being unable to reject either; of being in the position, with regard to food, occupied by the poet who wrote—

“How happy could I be with either,
Were t’other dear charmer away!”

So he must be prompt, and, should the dish be handed round, help himself without delay.

Helping oneself.

On this very point of helping himself I have seen young men endure excruciating agonies of shyness. Sometimes they take the merest morsel of some excellent dish, though they would like very well to have some more. At other times they help themselves to far too much, because they are so confused that they will not take the necessary time to separate for their own share a moderate quantity. Occasionally they drop the spoon or fork with a clatter into the dish, after which they look intensely miserable for ten minutes or so.

A useful reflection.

The best way to avoid all this is to preserve absolute self-possession by reflecting that the other guests are all too well occupied to pay any attention to such trifling matters. The self-consciousness of which shyness is the outward and visible sign, makes a young man feel that every one is observing him, especially when he is awkward in handling things. But he may console himself with the conviction that he is of much less importance to them than their own dinner, to say nothing of the ladies who sit beside them.

The order of the wines.

Indicating.

Thanking servants.