Good-bye dinner, good-bye lunch, Good-bye turtle, good-bye punch, Good-bye jambon soaked in cham., Good-bye venison, cutlets lamb, Good-bye salmon, smelts, and sole, Good-bye Heidsieck's monopole, Good-bye hock, sauterne, and sherry, Good-bye all that makes me merry, Good-bye liqueurs, _petit verre_, Good-bye sauce _au Vin Madère_, Good-bye all these joys of life, Good-bye fork, and good-bye knife, Good-bye all I take when out, Good-bye _then_ this twinge of gout! * * * * * [Illustration: _Our Gallant Colonel._ "Your daughters, my dear Mrs. Tympanum, are looking delightful to-night--simply delightful!" _Mrs. Tympanum (rather hard of hearing, and very intent on a rôti of ducklings)._ "Yes, aren't they! I've had them stuffed with sage and onions!"] * * * * * [Illustration: CRUEL!--_Smith (usually a shy, reserved, and silent man) tells a rather long, but otherwise entertaining, story, about an orange, which meets with great success. Brown (when the laughter and applause have subsided)._ "Bravo, Smith! Capital, old man! But, I say, you told it better one night at Jones's, a few months ago!" _Jones._ "No, no! Where he told it best was that morning we breakfasted with you, Brown, somewhere about the beginning of the year before last!" _Robinson._ "Ah, but don't you recollect the way he told it after that supper I gave you fellows at Evans' in 'fifty-one'? How we _did_ laugh, to be sure!"] * * * * * [Illustration: WHOSE FAULT?--_Wife (reproachfully)._ "O, Charles!" (_She had returned to the dining-room, wondering why he had not come upstairs to tea.) Charles (who had evidently taken a little too much wine)._ "V'y well, my dear! 'Sh not my fault! 'Sh your fault! Cooksh fault! 'Bisque soup was salt! Sh'preme d'la V'laille was smoked! And orange frittersh 'tough as leather! What did Capt'n du Cane shay? Bad cookery cause of all sorts o' crimes. 'Shamed of yourshelf!"] * * * * * [Illustration: "For when our veins are filled With wine and feeding, we have suppler souls Than in our priest-like fasts."--SHAKSPEARE: _Coriolanus_. AFTER-DINNER CRITICISM.--_Guest (who has had a pleasant evening, will just have a look at his host's pictures before he goes)._ "Yesh--(_hic_)--'like tha' pictsh're! Fi' lanshc'pe! 'Like the treesh! 'Branshes wave 'bout s' nash'rally!!!"] * * * * * DINNER PLATITUDES Twice of soup is vulgar, but three times of soup implies that you must be more than double-plated with vulgarity. Such a thing was never known, not even at the Trinity Board, and turtle is not the slightest excuse for your pushing things to such a vulgar length. An alderman would really blush for you. A soft answer turneth away wrath, and an invitation to take a glass of wine will frequently restore warmth between two friends where only coldness existed before.