Chapter I: Making and Receiving Calls

Never, however formal your visit, neglect to wipe your feet on the door-mat, in lieu of the hall or stair-carpet. A private hall-way is not a stable entrance.

Never bound into the drawing-room unannounced, with your hat, overcoat and overshoes on, nor with your umbrella in your hand, especially if it has been raining hard.

Never, particularly if a comparative stranger, hail your host as “Old Cock,” nor grab your hostess’s jeweled hand, whether offered to you or not, as if it were a rope’s end, and you in danger of drowning. Neither, if other guests are present with whom you have no acquaintance, prance around amongst them, poking them in the ribs, slapping them on the back, etc. True breeding is not synonymous with monkey capers and bar-room manners.

Never be icy or contemptuous; but never, on the other hand, be fiery or too familiar. Emulate neither the iceberg nor the volcano; there is a happy medium that can be cultivated to advantage.

Never loll at full length on the sofa, or bestride a chair with your elbows resting on the back, and the soles of your boots plainly visible to your _vis-a-vis_. Sofas are not beds, nor are chairs vaulting-horses.

Never, even when sitting in your chair, tilt it far back, with your heels resting on the mantel-piece, and your back to the rest of the company present. Are you a gentleman or an orang-outang?

Never, either, keep twisting and squirming about in your chair as if sitting on a hornet’s nest, nor keep crossing and recrossing the legs every second and a half, nor carve your initials on the furniture with your penknife. St. Vitus’ dance is one thing, dignified repose another.

Never, in being introduced to a lady, make a pun on her name, if it is a homely one, or jokingly allude to rouge-pots and whited sepulchers, if she is no longer young, with an air of having resorted to preservative aids. Illogical but intuitive, the feminine mind is swift to imagine and resent an innuendo where perhaps none was intended.

Never, if the lady be young but homely, at once patronizingly remark that, after all, handsome is as handsome does, and you have even known the dowdiest and most unattractive girls make good matches through tact and perseverance. However laudable your intention, there may be a muscular brother inconveniently in the background.

Never attempt to sing or play, even though pressed to do so, if you are absolutely ignorant of both vocal and instrumental music. Effects might, indeed, be produced, but would they be desirable?

Never be so self-conscious as to fancy yourself a cave-bear and other people but field-mice. “True politeness will betray no hoggishness,” as an ancient writer has sagely observed.

Never, especially with your superiors, buttonhole people, or shake your fist in their faces, or pound them in the ribs when you have occasion to address them. This is more appropriate to a horse auction than a drawing-room, and is in violation of good form.

Never lean across one person with your hands on his knees and your back-hair in his face, to talk to another.

Never bawl out at the top of your lungs, or try to monopolize all the talk; you are neither in the stock exchange nor a cattle yard.

Never, if bald and warm, mop and rub up your head, ears and neck with your handkerchief. A reception or drawing-room is not a barber-shop.

Never intrude your maladies upon the general conversation. People cannot be so much interested in your bunions or backache as you are.

Never violently abuse people who may overhear you, nor be bitingly witty at another’s expense.

Never interrupt the general conversation by reading long-winded newspaper reports aloud.

Never contemptuously criticise the furniture, the pictures, or the wall-paper as being cheap and mean. This is but a scurvy return for the hospitality you are enjoying.

Never chew tobacco, or smoke a pipe at receptions. If you must do the one or the other, be sure to use the cuspidor; but it is safer to let up on tobacco until out-of-doors, or in your own room.

Never calumniate people, or give a false coloring to your statements. In other words, don’t lie any more than you can help. Be diplomatic.

Never, above all, fail in tact. For instance, don’t say that the room is as cold as a barn, even if you think so. Tact and fact may not always go hand-in-hand.

Never interrupt or contradict overbearingly, or with a sort of snort. Either of these faults is directly opposed to the canons of good society.

Never be explosive or pugnacious, accompanying your side of an argument with roaring explosives and furious gesticulations. A lady’s parlor is not a bear-garden.

Never, on the other hand, be cowering and sniveling, as though desirous of some one to kick you as a boon. In deportment, the demeanor of the rabbit is no more to be emulated than that of the famished wolf.

Never, in the midst of a discussion upon solemn topics, retail antediluvian jokes, and then ha, ha! boisterously at them when no one else can see anything to laugh at. In fine, don’t be an unmitigated bore.

Never gape, yawn, “heigh ho,” or stamp your feet disapprovingly, when others are talking. This is blighting, if not fairly irritating.

Never be unduly “stuck up.” Because you are yourself is no reason why you are William H. Vanderbilt or George Francis Train.

Never sulk and growl under your breath, like a bear with a sore head, because you fancy yourself neglected. Brighten up, and even snicker, rather than adopt this gloomy course. Moroseness is dispiriting.

Never even murder a persistent bore until you get outside. To send for the police might cause an inconvenience.

Never, if playing cards with ladies, spit on your hands when dealing, or mark the bowers and aces with pencil-marks or knife-punctures. Englishmen would be especially horrified at such a proceeding.

Never rave, tear your hair, or swear there has been cheating all around, even if you have lost ten cents on the game. Either bear your losses with equanimity, or never gamble.

Never treat aged and venerable persons like budding hoodlums, or make riotous fun of their wrinkles or their bald heads. You may be old yourself, some time, if not assassinated for your bad manners.

Never neglect to give precedence to ladies, both on entering and quitting a room. A brutal disregard of this injunction might cause you to be led out by the ear.

Never, as hostess, insist that a casual caller shall send for his trunk and stay a week or two.

Never, as host, ask him hilariously if he is well over his last drunk, and getting primed for another. This is not in good taste.

Never hurry your departure, as if your legs were sticks and your body a sky-rocket.

Never, on the other hand, tarry from, say, four in the afternoon till three in the morning. A light, flying visit is one thing, taking root another.