The term "cover" signifies the place laid at table for each person. It consists of a table-spoon for soup, fish knife and fork, two knives, two large forks, and gla.s.ses for wines given. For such arrangements see chapter "Waiting at dinner" in the work ent.i.tled "Waiting at Table."

Sherry is always drunk after soup, hock with the fish after the soup.

Champagne is drunk immediately after the first _entree_ has been served, and during the remainder of dinner until dessert. Claret, sherry, port, and Madeira are the wines drunk at dessert, and not champagne, as it is essentially a dinner wine. When liqueurs are given they are handed after the ices.

=Dinner-table Etiquette.=--Soup should be eaten with a table-spoon and not with a dessert-spoon, it would be out of place to use a dessert-spoon for that purpose. Dessert-spoons, as their name implies, are intended for other purposes, such as for eating fruit-tarts, custard-puddings, etc., or any sweet that is not sufficiently substantial to be eaten with a fork.

Fish should be eaten with a silver fork when possible, otherwise with a silver fish knife and fork.

All made dishes, such as _quenelles_, _rissoles_, patties, etc., should be eaten with a fork only, and not with a knife and fork.

For sweetbreads and cutlets, etc., a knife and fork are requisite; and, as a matter of course, for poultry, game, etc.

In eating asparagus, a knife and fork should be used, and the points should be cut off and eaten with a fork as is sea-kale, etc.

Salad should be eaten with a knife and fork; it is served on salad plates, which are placed beside the dinner-plates.

Cuc.u.mber is eaten off the dinner-plate, and not off a separate plate.

Peas should be eaten with a fork.

In eating game or poultry, the bone of either wing or leg should not be touched with the fingers, but the meat cut close off the bone; and if a wing it is best to sever it at the joint, by which means the meat is cut off far more easily.

Pastry should be eaten with a fork, but in the case of a fruit tart, a dessert-spoon should be used as well as a fork, but only for the purpose of conveying the fruit and juice to the mouth; and in the case of stone fruit--cherries, damsons, plums, etc.--either the dessert-spoon or fork should be raised to the lips to receive the stones, which should be placed at the side of the plate; but when the fruit stones are of larger size, they should be separated from the fruit with the fork and spoon, and left on the plate, and not put into the mouth; and whenever it is possible to separate the stones from the fruit it is best to do so.

Jellies, blancmanges, ice puddings, etc., should be eaten with a fork, as should be all sweets sufficiently substantial to admit of it.

When eating cheese, small morsels of the cheese should be placed with the knife on small morsels of bread, and the two conveyed to the mouth with the thumb and finger, the piece of bread being the morsel to hold, as cheese should not be taken up in the fingers, and should not be eaten off the point of the knife.[3]

The finger-gla.s.s should be removed from the ice-plate and placed on the left-hand side of the dessert-plate. When ices are not given, the d'oyley should be removed with the finger-gla.s.s and placed beneath it.

When eating grapes, the half-closed hand should be placed to the mouth, and the stones and skins allowed to fall into the fingers, and placed on the side of the plate. Some persons bend the head so as to allow of the stones and skins of the grapes falling on the side of the plate; but this latter way is old-fas.h.i.+oned, and seldom followed. Cherries and other small stone-fruit should be eaten in the way grapes are eaten, also gooseberries.

When strawberries and raspberries, etc., are not eaten with cream, they should be eaten from the stalks; when eaten with cream, a dessert-spoon should be used to remove them from the stalks. When served in the American fas.h.i.+on without stalks, both fork and spoon should be used.

Pears and apples should be peeled and cut into halves and quarters with a fruit-knife and fork, as should peaches, nectarines, and apricots.

Melons should be eaten with a spoon and fork.

Pines with knife and fork.

The dessert is handed to the guests in the order in which the dinner has been served.[4]

When the guests have been helped to wine, and the servants have left the dining-room, the host should pa.s.s the decanters to his guests, commencing with the gentleman nearest to him.

It is not the fas.h.i.+on for gentlemen to drink wine with each other either at dinner or dessert, and the guest fills his gla.s.s or not, according to inclination.

Ladies are not supposed to require a second gla.s.s of wine at dessert, and pa.s.sing the decanters is princ.i.p.ally for the gentlemen. If a lady should require a second gla.s.s of wine at dessert, the gentleman seated next to her would fill her gla.s.s; she should not help herself to wine.

After the wine has been pa.s.sed once around the table, or about ten minutes after the servants have left the dining-room, the hostess should give the signal for the ladies to leave the dining-room, by bowing to the lady of highest rank present, seated at the host's right hand. She should then rise from her seat, as should all the ladies on seeing her do so.

The gentlemen should rise also, and remain standing by their chairs until the ladies have quitted the room, which they should do in the order in which they have entered it, the lady of highest rank leading the way, the hostess following last.

The host, or the gentleman nearest the door, should open it for the ladies to pa.s.s out, and close it after them.

When the ladies have left the dining-room, the gentlemen should close up as near to the host as possible, so as to render conversation general.

The wines usually drunk by gentlemen after dinner are claret of a fine quality, and port.

The ladies on leaving the dining-room return to the drawing-room. Coffee should be almost immediately brought to the drawing-room. The coffee-cups containing coffee should be brought on a silver salver, with a cream-jug and a basin of crystallised sugar.

In large country houses coffee is sometimes brought in a silver coffee-pot, and the lady would then pour out her own coffee, the servant holding the salver the meanwhile.

Coffee should be taken a few minutes later to the dining-room, and either handed to the gentlemen, or placed on the table, that they may help themselves (see the work previously referred to).

A very general plan is, after the wine has gone round once or twice, for the host to offer cigarettes, which are smoked before the gentlemen join the ladies in the drawing-room.

After coffee, the gentleman of highest rank should leave the dining-room first. The host would not propose an adjournment to the drawing-room, until he observed a wish to do so on the part of his guests, but there is no hard and fast rule on this head.

It is not now the fas.h.i.+on for gentlemen to sit over their wine beyond fifteen or twenty minutes at the utmost, instead of as formerly, from three-quarters of an hour to an hour, a change much appreciated by hostesses.

On the Continent the gentlemen accompany the ladies to the drawing-room, and do not remain in the dining-room as in England.

The gentleman of highest rank present could suggest an adjournment to the drawing-room within a quarter of an hour if he thought proper to do so. If the other guests were engaged in a discussion in which he did not wish to take part, having suggested the adjournment, he could leave the dining-room to join the ladies in the drawing-room; but as a rule, the gentlemen leave the dining-room together, the host following last.

The host should ring the dining-room bell before leaving the room, as an intimation to the butler that the gentlemen have left the room.

At ceremonious dinner-parties in town neither music nor cards are introduced during the usual half-hour pa.s.sed in the drawing-room before the hour for departure.

At country-house dinner-parties music or round games of cards are in request.

=Departure after Dinner.=--There is no rule as to the order in which the guests should take their leave. Half-past ten is the usual hour for general departure; and the butler announces the several carriages as they arrive to the guests in the drawing-room. But if any lady wished to inquire if her carriage had arrived, she should ask the hostess's permission to do so; and the bell would be rung for the purpose of making the enquiry. The same remark applies to ordering a cab: the lady should ask the hostess if one might be ordered for her.

The hostess should shake hands with all her guests on their departure, rising from her seat to do so.

Each guest on departure should shake hands with both host and hostess.

If, on leaving the room, acquaintances should pa.s.s each other, they should wish each other good-night, but they should not make the tour of the rooms for the purpose of so doing.

The host should conduct one or two of the princ.i.p.al of his lady guests to their carriages.

The ladies should put on their cloaks in the cloak-room, the host waiting in the hall meanwhile.

A gentleman related to the host or hostess, or a friend of the family, could offer to conduct a lady to her carriage if the host were otherwise engaged.

=Gratuities= should never be offered by the guests at a dinner-party to the servants in attendance. Gentlemen should not offer fees to the men-servants, neither should ladies to the lady's-maid in attendance.