Part 15

5. TUXEDO. Excellent opportunities here, particularly in the Tuxedo jiggers and at the club on rainy days, when a fourth is needed at bridge.

6. LONG ISLAND. This is the Tattenham Corner of the social Derby—(many bad falls here—due to riding too hard)—the last great turn before the finish. (Try Hempstead, Westbury, and Roslyn—in order.)

7. NEWPORT. Having finally reached Newport, be very careful about the pace. Begin cautiously with Bellevue Avenue and the casino. Gradually, however, you may hit up the pace and try the golf club, Bailey’s Beach, and, finally, you may dash past the judge’s stand and weigh in at Ochre Point.

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At Newport the hostess usually retires at about 1.30. This should be the signal for all the bachelors, diplomats, and foreigners who are stopping with her, to ask the butler for carriages and motors to convey them to Canfield’s (a fashionable roulette and chicken-salad parlor).

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A bachelor stopping with friends in Newport should never lunch or dine in their house. It is more jaunty to dine out. If they are truly considerate, they will supply him with red morocco “in-and-out” signs which he can manipulate, in accordance with his engagements, in the entrance hall.

After a week or so, if he has not yet seen his host or hostess and is preparing to leave Newport, it is sometimes thoughtful and kind to send a card up to their rooms by a servant, thanking them for their hospitality.

GENERAL RULES

GENERAL RULES

Wedding receptions are usually held in small private houses holding anywhere from one hundred to two hundred guests. It is customary to invite sixteen hundred people, six hundred of whom arrive and three hundred of whom usually remain wedged for hours upon the stairs in a bewildering sea of picture hats, lobster salad, smilax, rice, and lady fingers.

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After a funeral it is customary for the family to supply a few extra carriages in which the pallbearers and mourners go to the burial ground. After this ceremony the bachelor, who has availed himself of one of the vehicles, may, with propriety, ask the driver to take him to his rooms; but it is a gross breach of good form to keep the carriage on (at the family’s expense) for calling, going to the play, or driving to Belmont Park for the races.

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In thanking friends for wedding presents, it is well to remember that nearly all of them will have to be exchanged. Lay your plans accordingly. Do not thank anybody until you have bunched the duplicates.

Let us assume, for instance, that the seventeen traveling clocks, forty-eight candlesticks, eleven porcelain parasol handles, fifty-one cut-glass salad bowls, thirteen fans, and eighty-four silver teapots have all been gathered together in convenient groups. At this point the bride-to-be may dictate an appropriate “teapot” letter to her secretary. This note will do for all the teapots. The following is a graceful example of such an epistle:

MY DEAR —— ——:

The teapot is too ravishing. What an angel you are! I simply adore it. Oddly enough, it was the very thing I had longed and prayed for.

Yours ever,

BLANCHE.

P. S.—Where did you say you bought it?

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When a lady calls you up on the telephone, and seems disposed to run on forever, simply hang up the receiver and go on with your cigar. If she calls up again to complete the conversation, tell your servant to say that you were disgusted with the way the central girl cut you off and have gone to the telephone company to lodge a complaint.

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Be careful to remember that the lady always bows first. On some occasions it is difficult to determine whether the fast-approaching queen of fashion is going to bow or not. Should you be walking down the avenue with another man, proceed as follows: Look at her and exclaim gladly: “Why, how do you do—” Should she freeze, or cut you, you have but to turn to your friend and complete your remark by adding—“that little trick you showed me yesterday?”

Thus, it may appear to him that your remark was meant to be a continuous one, having to do with some feat of legerdemain, and he will fail to notice the snub which has been so cruelly inflicted upon you.

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Proposals by women, while permissible, are not customary, and, although they are yearly becoming more and more popular, are still regarded as an innovation. If the proposal is rejected, good taste and kindly consideration demand that the gentleman should keep it more or less of a secret.