self
telephones:

"Can you do me a great favor and fill a place at dinner to-night?" The one
who receives this invitation is rather bound by the rules of good manners
to accept if possible.

=IMPORTANCE OF DINNER ENGAGEMENTS=

Dinner invitations must be answered immediately; engraved or written ones
by return post, or those which were telephoned, by telephone and at once!
Also, nothing but serious illness or death or an utterly unavoidable
accident can excuse the breaking of a dinner engagement.

To accept a dinner at Mrs. Nobody's and then break the obligation upon
being invited to dine with the Worldlys, proclaims anyone capable of such
rudeness an unmitigated snob, whom Mrs. Worldly would be the first to cut
from her visiting list if she knew of it. The rule is: "Don't accept an
invitation if you don't care about it." Having declined the Nobody
invitation in the first place, you are then free to accept Mrs. Worldly's,
or to stay at home. There are times, however, when engagements between
very close friends or members of the family may perhaps be broken, but
only if made with the special stipulation: "Come to dinner with us alone
Thursday if nothing better turns up!" And the other answers, "I'd love
to--and you let me know too, if you want to do anything else." Meanwhile
if one of them is invited to something unusually tempting, there is no
rudeness in telephoning her friend, "Lucy has asked us to hear Galli-Curci
on Thursday!" and the other says, "Go, by all means! We can dine Tuesday
next week if you like, or come Sunday for supper." This privilege of
intimacy can, however, be abused. An engagement, even with a member of
one's family, ought never to be broken twice within a brief period, or it
becomes apparent that the other's presence is more a fill-in of idle time
than a longed-for pleasure.

=THE MENU=

It may be due to the war period, which accustomed everyone to going with
very little meat and to marked reduction in all food, or it may be, of
course, merely vanity that is causing even grandparents to aspire to
svelte figures, but whatever the cause, people are putting much less food
on their tables than formerly. The very rich, living in the biggest houses
with the most imposing array of servants, sit down to three, or at most
four, courses when alone, or when intimate friends who are known to have
moderate appetites, are dining with them.

Under no circumstances would a private dinner, no matter ho