d roll a third the width of
its height. (Bread should _not_ be put in the napkin--not nowadays.) The
place cards are usually put above the plate on the tablecloth, but some
people put them on top of the napkin because they are more easily read.

When the places have been set, four silver dishes (or more on a very big
table), either bowl or basket or paten shaped, are put at the four
corners, between the candlesticks (or candelabra) and the centerpiece; or
wherever there are four equally spaced vacancies on the table. These
dishes, or compotiers, hold candy or fruit, chosen less for taste than for
decorative appearance.

On a very large table the four compotiers are filled with candy, and two
or four larger silver dishes or baskets are filled with fruit and put on
alternately with the candy dishes. Flowers are also often put in two or
four smaller vases, in addition to a larger and dominating one in the
center.

Peppers and salts should be put at every other place. For a dinner of
twelve there should be six salt cellars at least, if not six pepper pots.

Olives and radishes are served from the side table, but salted nuts are
often put on the dinner table either in two big silver dishes, or in small
individual ones.

=HAVE SILVER THAT SHINES OR NONE=

Lots of people who would not dream of using a wrinkled tablecloth or
chipped glass or china, seem perfectly blind to dirty silver--silver that
is washed clean of food of course, but so dull that it looks like
jaundiced pewter.

Don't put any silver on your table if you can't have it cleaned.
Infinitely rather have every ornament of glass or china--and if knives and
forks have crevices in the design of their handles that are hard to clean,
buy plain plated ones, or use tin! Anything is better than yellow-faced
dirty-finger-nailed silver. The first thing to ask in engaging a waitress
is, "Can you clean silver?" If she can't, she would better be something
else.

Of course no waitress and no single-handed butler can keep silver the way
it is kept in such houses as the Worldlys', nor is such perfection
expected. The silver polishing of perfection in huge houses is done by
such an expert that no one can tell whether a fork has that moment been
sent from the silversmiths or not. It is not merely polished until it is
bright, but burnished so that it is new! Every piece of silver in certain
of the great establishments, or in smaller ones that are run like a great
one, is