est's duty, too, to keep
his ears open and be ready to join in general talk should the host or
hostess attempt to draw all their guests into any general discussion.

The best answer to the question, "What should guests at dinner talk
about?" is, anything and everything, provided the talk is tinctured with
tact, discretion, and discrimination. To one's dinner-companion, if he
happens to be a familiar acquaintance, one can even forget to taboo
dress, disease, and domestics. One might likewise, with discretion, set
at liberty the usually forbidden talk of "shop," on condition that such
intimate conversation is to one's dinner-companion alone and is not
dragged into the general flights of the table-talk. While one talks to
one's dinner-companion in a low voice, however, it needs nice
discrimination not to seem to talk under one's breath, or to say
anything to a left-hand neighbor which would not be appropriate for a
right-hand neighbor to hear. When in general talk, the habit some
supposedly well-bred persons have of glancing furtively at any one guest
to interrogate telepathically another's opinion of some remark is bad
taste beyond the power of censure or the possibility of forgiveness.

At large, formal dinners, on the order of banquets, it would be
impossible for all guests to include a host or hostess in their
conversational groups from any and every part of the table; only those
guests seated near them can do this. But at small, informal dinners all
guests should, whenever possible, consider it their duty to direct much
of their conversation to their host and hostess. I have seen guests at
small dinners of no more than six or eight covers go through the
various courses of a three hours' dining, ignoring their host and
hostess in the entire table-talk, while conversing volubly with others.
There is something more due a host and hostess than mere greetings on
entering and leave-takings on departing. If the dinner-party is so large
that all guests cannot show them at the table the attention due them,
the delinquent ones can at least seek an opportunity in the
drawing-room, after guests have left the dining-room, to pay their host
and hostess the proper courtesy. Hosts should never be made to feel that
it is to their cook they owe their distinction, and to their table alone
that guests pay visits.

To say that the dominant note in table-talk should be light and humorous
is going too far; but conversation between dinner-