the fashion of large dinner parties.
For really good society no dinner-table should be too large to exclude
general conversation." At a banquet of thirty or forty, for instance,
general talk is impossible. At such banquets toasts and responses take
the place of general talk; but at small dinners it is gracious for a
host and hostess to lead the conversation often into general paths.
Ignoring a host and hostess through the various courses of a three
hours' dining, which I have already mentioned, can as easily be the
fault of the host and hostess themselves as it can be due to inattention
on the part of guests. A host and hostess should no more ignore any one
guest than any one guest should ignore them; and if they sit at their
own table, as I have sometimes seen hosts and hostesses do, assuming no
different function in the conversation than if they were the most
thoughtless guest at the table of another, they cannot expect their own
guests to be anything but petrified, however instinctively social.

The conversational duty of a host and hostess is, therefore, to the
entire company of people assembled at their board, as well as especially
to their right-hand neighbors, the guests of honor. It is the express
function of a host and hostess to see that each guest takes active part
in general table-talk. Leading the talk into general paths and drawing
guests out thus become identical. It is this promoting of general
conversation which is the backbone of all good talk. Many people,
however, do not need to be drawn out. Mr. Mahaffy cautions: "Above all,
the particular guest of the occasion, or the person best known as a wit
or story-teller, should not be pressed or challenged at the outset, as
if he were manifestly exploited by the company." Such a guest can safely
be left quite to himself, unless he is a stranger. As drawing out the
people by whom one finds one's self surrounded in society will be
treated in a forthcoming essay, I shall not deal with it here further
than to tell how a famous pun of Charles Lamb's gave a thoughtful host
not only the means of swaying the conversation of the entire table to a
subject of universal interest, but as well the means of drawing out a
well-informed yet timid girl. Guiding his talk with his near neighbor
into a discussion of the _pros_ and _cons_ of punning, he attracted the
attention of all his guests by addressing some one at the further end of
the table: "Mr. White, we were speaking of