No matter how plain your cook may be, so long as your dinner is well-dressed. A few compliments go a great way. A little savoury _pâté_ is quite enough. Try too many, and you'll find they'll prove heavy. When the ladies retire from the dinner-table, it is not usual for you (supposing you to be a gentleman) to retire with them. In this instance, the same law extends to the mistress as to the servants:--"No Followers Allowed." A gratuity well bestowed frequently has a happy effect. The servant that is fee'd well takes care that his master does the same. In the hands of an inferior _artiste_, whether an omelette turns out good or bad, is quite a matter of toss up. It is the same with a pancake. Keep ill-natured people from your table, as you would sour fruit. They are sure to disagree with every one. Avoid crab-apples, lest the apple of discord should turn up amongst them. * * * * * ODE TO A DINNER-GONG "The tocsin of the soul--the dinner-bell." So said, admiringly, the late Lord Byron, But he had never heard _your_ noisy knell, O blatant bellowing thing of brass or iron, Or surely he had metrically cursed Your nerve-distracting Corybantic clangour. Would his fine indignation could have versed My utter hate, my agonising anger. Alas! is gusto then so great a sin, Is feeding man so terrible a sinner That such a worse than _Duncan_-raising din Must summon him to--dinner? * * * * * [Illustration: DOWN A PEG.--_Mr. Gifted Hopkins (minor poet, essayist, critic, golfer, fin-de-siècle idol, &c.)._ "Oh, Mrs. Smart--a--I've been thinking, for the last twenty minutes, of something to say to you!" _Mrs. Smart (cheerfully)._ "Please go on thinking, Mr. Hopkins,--and I'll go on talking to Professor Brayne in the meantime."] * * * * * [Illustration: PAST AND PRESENT.--_Serious and much-married man._ "My dear friend, I _was_ astonished to hear of _your_ dining at Madame Troisétoiles!--a 'woman with a past' you know!" _The Friend_ (_bachelor "unattached"_). "Well, you see, old man, she got a first-rate _chef_, so it isn't her 'past,' but her 're-past' that _I_ care about."] * * * * * [Illustration: A CONNOISSEUR.--_Sir Pompey Bedell._ "This bottle of Romanée-conti seems rather cloudy, Brown! It _ought_ to be all right. I know it stands me in _twelve guineas a dozen_!" _The New Butler._ "There certainly _his_ some sediment, Sir Pompey; but it's of no consequence whatever! I tried a bottle of it _myself_ the other day, and found it first-rate!"] * * * * * [Illustration: A PIOUS FRAUD! "Hullo, Monty, what have you got in your button-hole? You don't mean to say you've joined the blue ribbon army?" "Yes; for this night only. Going to dine with Jakes. Don't want to hurt poor old Jakes' feelings--don't want to be poisoned by his beastly wine. See?"]