ies at dinners where the requisite number of sufficiently
well-trained servants are to be had.

This service, which consists in having all articles of food carved,
and otherwise prepared, and brought to the guests separately by
waiters, or footmen, as they are called in England at private tables,
has the advantage of leaving the host and hostess free to converse
with their guests. It also has another advantage of presenting the
table, as the guests enter the room, free from dishes, save the oyster
plates, glass, silver, flowers, and perhaps at the two ends of the
board, Bohemian glass flagons, of ruby-red, containing such decanted
wines as do not need icing.

The table also, being so carefully cleared at the end of each course,
should present about the same faultless appearance at the close of the
feast as at its beginning. The guests being seated at their respective
places, Majolica plates containing raw oysters on the half-shell, or
otherwise, with a piece of lemon in the center are, if not already in
place, immediately put before each guest. The roll, or piece of bread,
should be at once removed from the folds of the napkin, and the
servants, when all are seated, pass red and black pepper. The oyster
plates are then removed and plates of soup follow, dished from a side
table by the head waiter, and served by two others, who pass down
opposite sides of the table carrying each two dishes. Where two kinds
of soup are provided, each guest is given the choice.

How the Dishes are to be Passed.

The servants, in passing the dishes, begin with the guest upon the
right hand of the master on one side of the table, ending with the
mistress of the house. Upon the other side they begin with the guest
upon her right and end with the host. As one servant passes the meat
or fish, another should follow, bearing the appropriate sauce or
vegetable that accompanies it.

The servants should wear thin-soled shoes, step lightly, be ungloved,
and always have a small-sized damask napkin wrapped around the thumb
of the right hand, as dexterity in handling the dishes requires that
they should extend the thumb over the edge of the dish.

They should pass all dishes at the left of the guests, that their
right hand may be free to take them. Wines only are excepted, these
being always poured at the right. Servants should never lean across
any guest at table in order to reach or pass an article.

In passing an _entree_ (ongtray), which i