The highest cultivation in social manners enables a person to conceal from the world his real feelings. He can go through any annoyance as if it were a pleasure; go to a rival’s house as if to a dear friend’s; “Smile and smile, yet murder while he smiles.” A great compliment once paid me in Newport was the speech of an old public waiter, who had grown gray in the service, when to a _confrère_ he exclaimed: “In this house, my friend, you meet none but quality.” In planning a dinner the question is not to whom you owe dinners, but who is most desirable. The success of the dinner depends as much upon the company as the cook. Discordant elements--people invited alphabetically, or to pay off debts--are fatal. Of course, I speak of ladies’ dinners. And here, great tact must be used in bringing together young womanhood and the dowagers. A dinner wholly made up of young people is generally stupid. You require the experienced woman of the world, who has at her fingers’ ends the history of past, present, and future. Critical, scandalous, with keen and ready wit, appreciating the dinner and wine at their worth. Ladies in beautiful toilets are necessary to the elegance of a dinner, as a most exquisitely arranged table is only a solemn affair surrounded by black coats. I make it a rule never to attend such dismal feasts, listening to prepared witticisms and “twice-told tales.” So much for your guests. The next step is an interview with your _chef_, if you have one, or _cordon bleu_, whom you must arouse to fever heat by working on his ambition and vanity. You must impress upon him that this particular dinner will give him fame and lead to fortune. My distinguished cousin, who enjoyed the reputation of being one of the most finished _gourmets_ in this country, when he reached this point, would bury his head in his hands and (seemingly to the _chef_) rack his brain seeking inspiration, fearing lest the fatal mistake should occur of letting two white or brown sauces follow each other in succession; or truffles appear twice in that dinner. The distress that his countenance wore as he repeatedly looked up at the _chef_, as if for advice and assistance, would have its intended effect on the culinary artist, and _his_ brain would at once act in sympathy.