In New York you are introduced occasionally, but you may never ask to be introduced, and you speak only to those you have been introduced to.  In London, you are never introduced to any one, but if the member who has taken you with him joins a group and you all sit down together, you talk as you would after dinner in a gentleman’s house.  But if you are made a temporary member and meet those you have been talking to when you are alone the next day, you do not speak unless spoken to.  In Paris, your host punctiliously introduces you to various members and you must just as punctiliously go the next day to their houses and leave your card upon each one!  This is customary in the strictly French clubs only.  In any one which has members of other nationalities—­especially with Americans predominating, or seeming to, American customs obtain.  In French clubs a visitor can not go to the club unless he is with a member, but there are no restrictions on the number of times he may be taken by the same member or another one.

=UNBREAKABLE RULES=

Failure to pay one’s debts, or behavior unbefitting a gentleman, is cause for expulsion from every club; which is looked upon in much the same light as expulsion from the Army.  In certain cases expulsion for debt may seem unfair, since one may find himself in unexpectedly straitened circumstances, and the greatest fault or crime could not be more severely dealt with than being expelled from his club; but “club honor”—­except under very temporary and mitigating conditions—­takes no account of any reason for being “unable” to meet his obligations.  He must—­or he is not considered honorable.

If a man can not afford to belong to a club he must resign while he is still “in good standing.”  If later on he is able to rejoin, his name is put at the head of the waiting list, and if he was considered a desirable member, he is re-elected at the next meeting of the governors.  But a man who has been expelled (unless he can show cause why his expulsion was unjust and be re-instated) can never again belong to that, or be elected to any other, club.

CHAPTER XXXI

GAMES AND SPORTS

The popularity of bridge whist began a quarter of a century ago with the older people and has increased slowly but steadily until it is scarcely an exaggeration to say that those who do not play bridge, which means “auction,” are seldom asked out.  And the epidemic is just as widespread among girls and boys as among older people.  Bridge is always taken seriously; a bumble puppy game won’t do at all, even among the youngest players, and other qualifications of character and of etiquette must be observed by every one who would be sought after to “make up a four.”

=PEOPLE CHARMING TO PLAY BRIDGE WITH=

That no one likes a poor partner—­or even a poor opponent—­goes without saying.