t
with those who had nothing?"

"Possibly," Florindo said, flattered into consequence by her momentary
deference, or show of it. "But the people who mostly meet to feed
together now are not hungry; they are already so stuffed that they
loathe the sight of the things. Some of them shirk the consequences by
frankly dining at home first, and then openly or covertly dodging the
courses."

"Yes, and you hear that praised as a mark of high civilization, or
social wisdom. I call it wicked, and an insult to the very genius of
hospitality."

"Well, I don't know. It must give the faster a good chance of seeing
how funny the feeders all look."

"I wonder, I _do_ wonder, how the feeding in common came to be the
custom," she said, thoughtfully. "Of course where it's done for
convenience, like hotels or in boarding-houses--but to do it wantonly,
as people do in society, it ought to be stopped."

"We might call art to our aid--have a large tableful of people kodaked
in the moments of ingulfing, chewing, or swallowing, as the act varied
from guest to guest; might be reproduced as picture postals, or from
films for the movies. That would give the ten and twenty cent
audiences a chance to see what life in the exclusive circles was."

She listened in dreamy inattention. "It was a step in the right
direction when people began to have afternoon teas. To be sure, there
was the biting and chewing sandwiches, but you needn't take _them_,
and most women could manage their teacups gracefully."

"Or hide their faces in them when they couldn't."

"Only," she continued, "the men wouldn't come after the first go off.
It was as bad as lunches. Now that the English way of serving tea to
callers has come in, it's better. You really get the men, and it keeps
them from taking cocktails so much."

"They're rather glad of that. But still, still, there's the guttling
and guzzling."

"It's reduced to a minimum."

"But it's there. And the first thing you know you've loaded yourself
up with cake or bread-and-butter and spoiled your appetite for dinner.
No, afternoon tea must go with the rest of it, if we're going to be
truly civilized. If people could come to one another's tables with
full minds instead of stomachs, there would be some excuse for
hospitality. Perhaps if we reversed the practice of the professional
diner-out, and read up at home as he now eats at home, and-- No, I
don't see how it could be done. But we might take a leaf from the