e best theater seats are those in the center of
the orchestra. A box in these days of hatlessness has nothing to recommend
it except that the people can sit in a group and gentlemen can go out
between the acts easily, but these advantages hardly make up for the
disadvantage to four or at least three out of the six box occupants who
see scarcely a slice of the stage.

=WILL YOU DINE AND GO TO THE PLAY?=

There is no more popular or agreeable way of entertaining people than to
ask them to "dine and go to the play." The majority do not even prefer to
have "opera" substituted for "play," because those who care for serious
music are a minority compared with those who like the theater.

If a bachelor gives a small theater party he usually takes his guests to
dine at the Fitz-Cherry or some other fashionable and "amusing"
restaurant, but a married couple living in their own house are more likely
to dine at home, unless they belong to a type prevalent in New York which
is "restaurant mad." The Gildings, in spite of the fact that their own
chef is the best there is, are much more apt to dine in a restaurant
before going to a play--or if they don't dine in a restaurant, they go to
one for supper afterwards. But the Normans, if they ask people to dine and
go to the theater, invariably dine at home.

A theater party can of course be of any size, but six or eight is the
usual number, and the invitations are telephoned: "Will Mr. and Mrs.
Lovejoy dine with Mr. and Mrs. Norman at seven-thirty on Tuesday and go to
the play?"

Or "Will Mr. and Mrs. Oldname dine with Mr. Clubwin Doe on Saturday at the
Toit d'Or and go to the play?"

When Mr. and Mrs. Oldname "accept with pleasure" a second message is
given: "Dinner will be at 7.30."

Mrs. Norman's guests go to her house. Mr. Doe's guests meet him in the
foyer of the Toit d'Or. But the guests at both dinners are taken to the
theater by their host. If a dinner is given by a hostess who has no car of
her own, a guest will sometimes ask: "Don't you want me to have the car
come back for us?" The hostess can either say to an intimate friend "Why,
yes, thank you very much," or to a more formal acquaintance, "No, thank
you just the same--I have ordered taxis." Or she can accept. There is no
rule beyond her own feelings in the matter.

Mr. Doe takes his guests to the theater in taxis. The Normans, if only the
Lovejoys are dining with them, go in Mrs. Norman's little town car, but if
th