removed, and the dessert
plates need merely be put down on the tablecloth. But the plates of every
other course have to be exchanged and therefore each individual service
requires two hands. Soup plates, two at a time, would better not be
attempted by any but the expert and sure-handed, as it is in placing one
plate, while holding the other aloft that the mishap of "soup poured down
some one's back" occurs! If only one plate of soup is brought in at a
time, that accident at least cannot happen. In the same way the spoon and
fork on the dessert plate can easily fall off, unless it is held level.
"Two plates at a time" therefore is not a question of etiquette, but of
the servant's skill.

_Plate Removed When Fork Is Laid Down_

Once upon a time it was actually considered impolite to remove a single
plate until the last guest at the table had finished eating! In other days
people evidently did not mind looking at their own dirty plates
indefinitely, nor could they have minded sitting for hours at table. Good
service to-day requires the removal of each plate as soon as the fork is
laid upon it; so that by the time the last fork is put down, the entire
table is set with clean plates and is ready for the next course.

=DOUBLE SERVICE AND THE ORDER OF TABLE PRECEDENCE=

At every well-ordered dinner, there should be a double service for ten or
twelve persons; that is, no hot dish should, if avoidable, be presented to
more than six, or nine at the outside. At a dinner of twelve, for
instance, two dishes each holding six portions, are garnished exactly
alike and presented at opposite ends of the table. One to the lady on the
right of the host, and the other to the lady at the opposite end of the
table. The services continue around to the right, but occasional butlers
direct that after serving the "lady of honor" on the right of the host,
the host is skipped and the dish presented to the lady on his left, after
which the dish continues around the table to the left, to ladies and
gentlemen as they come. In this event the second service starts opposite
the lady of honor and also skips the first gentleman, after which it goes
around the table to the left, skips the lady of honor and ends with the
host. The first service when it reaches the other end of the table skips
the lady who was first served and ends with the gentleman who was skipped.

It is perhaps more polite to the ladies to give them preference, but it is
complica