Part 3

P. S.—I am returning to you, by express, the woodland violet bath salt, the photograph frame, the bedroom clock, the silver brushes, the hot-water bag, and the two sachet cases which your servant mistook for my property.

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When you are visiting in the country and your hostess maintains a very small establishment, the servant may ask you, on awaking you, what you desire for breakfast. Out of consideration for your hostess you should ask for a very small and very simple breakfast. Try to confine yourself to grape fruit, oatmeal, bacon and eggs, corn bread, chicken mince, marmalade, coffee, honey, hot biscuits, and orange juice.

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Parlor tricks are great assets in a week-ender. The most popular are moving the scalp and ears, cracking the knuckles, disjointing the thumbs, standing on the head, tearing a pack of cards, and dancing a cake walk.

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When the host offers, after breakfast, to show you over the farm, gasp, and mention your rheumatism. Almost any lie is permissible to prevent so terrible a catastrophe.

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Young girls, when visiting at a house party, should be quiet and gentle, well behaved and agreeable; but when at home there is no reason why they should not be perfectly natural.

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The horrors of the guest room are too well-known to need enumeration, and can seldom be ameliorated. They are, roughly, as follows: The embroidered pillow slips, the egg-finished sheets, the drawer of the bureau that is warped and will not open, the rusty pins in the stony pincushion, the empty cut-glass cologne bottles, the blinds that bang in the night, the absence of hooks on which to hang your razor strop, the pictures of the “Huguenot Lovers” and Landseer’s “Sanctuary” over the headboard of the bed, the tendency of the maid to hide the matches, the dear little children in the nursery above you, the dead fly in the dried-up ink well, and the hidden radiator under the sofa.

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When you spend Sunday in the country, the proper schedule of tips for the servants is as follows:

Chauffeur $10.00 Butler 10.00 Coachman 5.00 Footman 3.00 Valet 5.00 Cook nothing Maid 2.00 Chambermaid 2.00 Strapper 1.00 Groom 2.00 ------- Total 40.00

Should you, however, have but $30 with you, you have but to take a very early train, in which case the butler will not have appeared, and there will be no necessity to tip him. The resourceful bachelor may also decide to compensate the maid, if she be pretty, by a few pleasant words of appreciation as to her beauty and by chucking her under the chin, as is invariably done on the stage in comic opera.

If your visit has been for a week, the above table of tips should be disregarded. At the end of such a visit you had best hand the housekeeper a letter of introduction to your lawyer, together with a list of your securities, and allow her to sue your estate for the gratuities.

(If you are from Pittsburg, care should be taken to double the above table of tips.)

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The dressing gong is sometimes meant to convey the impression that dinner will shortly be served in the banqueting hall. Usually, however, it is the signal for everybody to begin a new rubber.

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Try to go early to the stables and select a good riding horse for the rest of your visit. There are seldom more than two good ones. The rest are usually roarers or crocks.

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The hostess at a large country house is naturally expected to provide all the week-end essentials—i. e., liquors, cigars, food, carriages—and motors in condition. Besides these, however, she should never neglect to offer her guests certain little added comforts without which they would, very naturally, be miserable. Every guest should be supplied, therefore, with the following articles: a bottle of listerine, a cloth cap, a tennis bat, a hot-water bag, a pair of motor goggles, a bag of golf clubs, a sweater, six tennis balls, a bathroom, with needle shower (exclusive), a bathrobe, a pair of slippers, a pair of tennis shoes, a bathing suit, a box of cigarettes (fifty in a box), a set of diabolo sticks, a riding and driving horse, a fur overcoat, an umbrella, a bottle of eau de cologne, and a box of postage stamps.

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Guests are always invited from Friday night to Monday morning. It is wiser for the hostess to mention the Monday trains, or one of the guests may decide to stop longer. This is seldom a wise plan. Hostesses should clear the house of all guests before the three-day limit. Remember the Spanish proverb, “El huesped y el pece à tres dias hiede,” which, being translated, means, “Any guest, like any fish, is bound to be objectionable on the third day.”

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In certain country houses the architect has neglected to supply bathrooms for each of the guests. In some extreme cases as many as three bachelors are expected to share one bath. This is bad.

The best way to maneuver under such circumstances is to send your servant early to the bathroom and let him lock himself in. This will foil the invaders. When he hears your special knock on the door, he can open to you, and you can then bathe, take a nap in the bath, shave, smoke a cigarette, and read the papers in quiet.