ill probably have to pay the cost of it
himself in the long run; for those who hear him will fear him, and will
retire into themselves in his presence. On the other hand, nothing is
more honorable than to stand forth as the defender or the palliator of
the faults imputed to others, and nothing is easier than to expand such
a defense into general considerations as to the purity of human motives,
which will raise the conversation from its unwholesome grounds into the
upper air."

CHAPTER IV

WHAT SHOULD GUESTS TALK ABOUT AT DINNER?

_Guests' Talk During the Quarter of an Hour before Dinner--What
Guests May Talk About--Talking to One's Dinner-Companion--Guests'
Duty to Host and Hostess--The Dominant Note in Table-Talk--General
and_ Tete-a-Tete _Conversation between Guests--The Raconteur at
Dinner._

CHAPTER IV

WHAT SHOULD GUESTS TALK ABOUT AT DINNER?

"Good talk is not to be had for the asking. Humors must first be
accorded in a kind of overture for prolog; hour, company, and
circumstances be suited; and then at a fit juncture, the subject, the
quarry of two heated minds, spring up like a deer out of the wood."
Stevenson knew as well as Alice in Wonderland that something has to open
the conversation. "You can't even drink a bottle of wine without opening
it," argued Alice; and every dinner guest, during the quarter of an hour
before dinner, has felt the sententiousness of her remark. Someone in
writing about this critical period so conversationally difficult has
contended that no person in his senses would think of wasting good talk
in the drawing-room before dinner, but Professor Mahaffy thinks
otherwise: "In the very forefront there stares us in the face that
awkward period which even the gentle Menander notes as the worst
possible for conversation, the short time during which people are
assembling, and waiting for the announcement of dinner. If the witty man
were not usually a selfish person, who will not exhibit his talent
without the reward of full and leisurely appreciation, this is the real
moment to show his powers. A brilliant thing said at the very start
which sets people laughing, and makes them forget that they are waiting,
may alter the whole complexion of the party, may make the silent and
distant people feel themselves drawn into the sympathy of common
merriment, and thaw the iciness which so often fetters Anglo-Saxon
society. But as this faculty is not given t