"Last summer there was a play put on at one of our theatres in which
there was a scene at a race-track. At one side was a tally-ho coach. For
the first week the coach was an utterly valueless accessory, because the
people on it were the ordinary supers in the employ of the theatre. They
did not know how to behave on a coach, and nobody was interested. The
management were suddenly seized with a bright idea. They invited several
swell young men who knew how things were done on coaches to come and do
these things on their coach. The young men came and imparted a realism
to the scene that made that coach the centre of attraction. People who
went to that play departed educated in coach etiquette. Now there lies
my scheme in a nutshell. If these twenty-five, the Old Guard of society,
which dines but never surrenders, will give once a week a social
function in some place like Madison Square Garden, to which the million
may go merely as spectators, not as participators, is there any doubt
that they would fail to be instructed? The Garden will seat eight or ten
thousand people. Suppose, for an instance, that a dozen of your best
exponents of what is what were to give a dinner in the middle of the
arena, with ten thousand people looking on. Do you mean to say that of
all that vast audience no one would learn thereby how to behave at a
dinner?"
"It is a great scheme," said the Doctor.
"It is!" said the Idiot, "and I venture to say that a course of, say,
twelve social functions given in that way would prove so popular that
the Garden would turn away every night twice as many people as it could
accommodate."
"It would be instructive, no doubt," said the Bibliomaniac; "but how
would it expand society? Would you have examinations?"
"Most assuredly," said the Idiot. "At the end of the season I should
have a rigid examination of all who chose to apply. I would make them
dine in the presence of a committee of expert diners, I would have them
pass a searching examination in the Art of Wearing a Dress Suit, in the
Science of Entering a Drawing-room, in the Art of Behavior at Afternoon
Teas, and all the men who applied should also be compelled to pass a
physical examination as an assurance that they were equal to the task of
getting an ice for a young lady at a ball."
"Society would get to be too inclusive and would cease to be exclusive,"
suggested Mr. Whitechoker.
"I think not," said the Idiot. "I should not give a man or a woman the
degree of B.S. unless he or she had passed an examination of one hundred
per cent."
"B.S.?" queried Mr. Pedagog.
"Yes," returned the Idiot. "Bachelor of Society--a degree which, once
earned, should entitle one to recognition as a member of the upper ten
anywhere in Christendom."
"It is superb!" cried Mr. Pedagog, enthusiastically.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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