ot
pour it over the meat or vegetables, but on one side of them. Never load
down a person's plate with anything.

4. As soon as you are helped, begin to eat, or at least begin to occupy
yourself with what you have before you. Do not wait till your neighbors are
served--a custom that was long ago abandoned.

5. Should you, however, find yourself at a table where they have the
old-fashioned steel forks, eat with your knife, as the others do, and do
not let it be seen that you have any objection to doing so.

6. Bread should be broken. To butter a large piece of bread and then bite
it, as children do, is something the knowing never do. {64}

7. In eating game or poultry do not touch the bones with your fingers. To
take a bone in the fingers for the purpose of picking it, is looked upon as
being very inelegant.

8. Never use your own knife or fork to help another. Use rather the knife
or fork of the person you help.

9. Never send your knife or fork, or either of them, on your plate when you
send for second supply.

10. Never turn your elbows out when you use your knife and fork. Keep them
close to your sides.

11. Whenever you use your fingers to convey anything to your mouth or to
remove anything from the mouth, let it be the fingers of the left hand.

12. Tea, coffee, chocolate and the like are drank from the cup and never
from the saucer.

13. In masticating your food, keep your mouth shut; otherwise you will make
a noise that will be very offensive to those around you.

14. Don't attempt to talk with a full mouth. One thing at a time is as much
as any man can do well.

15. Should you find a worm or insect in your food, say nothing about it.

16. If a dish is distasteful to you, decline it, and without comment.

17. Never put bones or bits of fruit on the table cloth. Put them on the
side of your plate.

18. Do not hesitate to take the last piece on the dish, simply because it
is the last. To do so is to directly express the fear that you would
exhaust the supply.

19. If you would be what you would like to be--abroad, take care that you
_are_ what you would like to be--at home.

20. Avoid picking your teeth at the table if possible; but if you must, do
it, if you can, where you are not observed.

21. If an accident of any kind soever should occur during dinner, the cause
being who or what it may, you should not seem to note it.

22. Should you be so unfortunate as to overturn or to break anything