o many, so the average man
may content himself with having something ready to tell, and this, if
possible, in answer to the usual question exprest or implied: Is there
any news this afternoon? There are few days that the daily paper will
not afford to the intelligent critic something ridiculous either in
style or matter which has escaped the ordinary public; some local event,
nay, even some local tragedy, may suggest a topic not worth more than a
few moments of attention, which will secure the interest of minds
vacant, and perhaps more hungry to be fed than their bodies. Here then,
if anywhere in the whole range of conversation, the man or woman who
desires to be agreeable may venture to think beforehand, and bring with
them something ready, merely as the first kick or starting point to make
the evening run smoothly." However this may be, it is only with that
communicative feeling which comes after eating and drinking that talkers
warm up to discriminating discussion; and in the drawing-room just
before dinner, one can scarcely expect the conversation to turn on
anything but trifles.

At the moment a man presents his arm to the woman he is to take in to
dinner, he must have something ready in the way of a remark, for if he
goes in in silence, he is lost. There are a thousand and one nothings he
may say at this time. I know a clever man who talks interestingly for
fifteen minutes about the old-fashioned practice of offering a woman the
hand to lead her in to dinner, and whether or not that custom was more
courteous and graceful than our modern way of proceeding.

The question is often asked, "What should guests talk about at a
dinner?" I restrict my interrogation to guests, because there is a
distinction between the directing of a dinner-guest's conversation and
the guiding of the talk by host or hostess into necessary or interesting
channels. Dinners, especially in diplomatic circles, are as often given
to bring about dexterously certain ends in view as they are given for
mere pleasure; and when this is the case it is necessary as well as
gracious to steer conversation along the paths that it should go. A
guest's first duty is to his dinner-companion, the person with whom,
according to the prearranged plan of the hostess, he enters the
dining-room and by whom he finds himself seated at table. His next duty
is to his hosts. He has also an abstract conversational duty to his
next nearest neighbor at table. It is every gu