=ASKING SOMEONE TO FILL A PLACE=

Since no one but a fairly intimate friend is ever asked to fill a place, this invitation is always telephoned.  A very young man is asked by the butler if he will dine with Mrs. Gilding that evening, and very likely no explanation is made; but if the person to be invited is a lady or an older gentleman (except on such occasions as noted above), the hostess herself 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 how formal, consist of more than: 

1.  Hors d’oeuvre 2.  Soup 3.  Fish 4.  Entree 5.  Roast 6.  Salad 7.  Dessert 8.  Coffee