what spoon to use when the table
service is highly elaborate. The best policy for a stranger under such
conditions is that of watchful and unobtrusive waiting.

The dinners that business men choose for themselves are rarely divided
into numerous courses. Often they have only two: meat and vegetables,
and dessert. The regular order for a six-course dinner is: first, an
appetizer such as oyster cocktail, grapefruit, strawberries, or
something of the sort, followed by soup, fish, meat and vegetables,
salad, dessert, cheese and crackers. One or more of the courses is often
omitted.

The rule for tipping is universally the same: Ten per cent of the bill.

* * * * *

Suppose the cases had been reversed and the man from the city had been
in Smithville to take dinner with the young banker.

He is not accustomed to seeing all of the food put on the table at one
time, nor to having to use the same fork throughout the meal. But he is
a gentleman. He adapts himself to their standard so readily that not one
of the people at the table could tell but that he had always lived that
way.

The young banker is a gentleman, too. When his friends from the city
come to visit him he gives them the best he has and does not apologize
for it. He does not begin by saying, "I know you are used to having
better things than this but I suppose you can stand it for one meal." He
simply ushers his guest into the dining room as cordially and with as
little affectation as if he were the paying teller of the Smithville
bank. No one need ever apologize when he has done or given his best.

It is interesting to know that the standard of our young banker is
growing higher and higher all the time. He likes to know how the people
who have had time to make an art of dining do it and to adapt his ways
to theirs whenever he can.

* * * * *

It is a grave mistake for a business man to feel that he must entertain
another to the standard to which the second is accustomed. A poor man
who finds himself under the necessity of entertaining a rich one should
not feel that he must do it on a grand scale if he has been so
entertained by a rich one. Aside from the moral question involved the
great game of bluff is too silly and vulgar a one for grown men to play.

But business men play it and their wives join in. Suppose Mrs. Davis,
whose husband is an assistant of Mr. Burke, wishes to invite Mrs. Burke