Each gentleman then slightly bows, takes leave of his partner, and adjourns with the other gentlemen to the smoking-room, where after-dinner coffee, liqueurs, cigars and cigarettes are passed, and they all sit where they like and with whom they like, and talk.

It is perfectly correct for a gentleman to talk to any other who happens to be sitting near him, whether he knows him or not.  The host on occasions—­but it is rarely necessary—­starts the conversation if most of the guests are inclined to keep silent, by drawing this one or that into discussion of a general topic that everyone is likely to take part in.  At the end of twenty minutes or so, he must take the opportunity of the first lull in the conversation to suggest that they join the ladies in the drawing-room.

In a house where there is no smoking-room, the gentlemen do not conduct the ladies to the drawing-room, but stay where they are (the ladies leaving alone) and have their coffee, cigars, liqueurs and conversation sitting around the table.

In the drawing-room, meanwhile, the ladies are having coffee, cigarettes, and liqueurs passed to them.  There is not a modern New York hostess, scarcely even an old-fashioned one, who does not have cigarettes passed after dinner.

At a dinner of ten or twelve, the five or six ladies are apt to sit in one group, or possibly two sit by themselves, and three of four together, but at a very large dinner they inevitably fall into groups of four or five or so each.  In any case, the hostess must see that no one is left to sit alone.  If one of her guests is a stranger to the others, the hostess draws a chair near one of the groups and offering it to her single guest sits beside her.  After a while when this particular guest has at least joined the outskirts of the conversation of the group, the hostess leaves her and joins another group where perhaps she sits beside some one else who has been somewhat left out.  When there is no one who needs any especial attention, the hostess nevertheless sits for a time with each of the different groups in order to spend at least a part of the evening with all of her guests.

=WHEN THE GENTLEMEN RETURN TO THE DRAWING-ROOM=

When the gentlemen return to the drawing-room, if there is a particular lady that one of them wants to talk to, he naturally goes directly to where she is, and sits down beside her.  If, however, she is securely wedged in between two other ladies, he must ask her to join him elsewhere.  Supposing Mr. Jones, for instance, wants to talk to Mrs. Bobo Gilding, who is sitting between Mrs. Stranger and Miss Stiffleigh:  Mr. Jones saunters up to Mrs. Gilding—­he must not look too eager or seem too directly to prefer her to the two who are flanking her position, so he says rather casually, “Will you come and talk to me?” Whereupon she leaves her sandwiched position and goes over to another part of the room, and sits down where there is a vacant seat beside her.  Usually, however, the ladies on the ends, being accessible, are more apt to be joined by the first gentleman entering than is the one in the center, whom it is impossible to reach.  Etiquette has always decreed that gentlemen should not continue to talk together after leaving the smoking-room, as it is not courteous to those of the ladies who are necessarily left without partners.