r feet on a tiger-skin rug, and they converse
in epigram. Sometimes the epigram is positively rude; when it is not
rude it is so dull that no one wonders that the tiger's head on the rug
represents the tiger as yawning. But, while this is instructive, it
teaches us how to behave on special occasions only. You or I might call
upon a young woman who did not sit on a divan, who had no tiger-skin rug
to put her feet on, and whose parlor had a mantel-piece against which we
could not lean comfortably. What are we to do then? As far as they go,
the funny papers are excellent, but they don't go far enough. They give
us attractive pictures of fashionable dinners, but it is always of the
dinner after the game course. Some of us would like to know how society
behaves while the soup is being served. We know that after the game
course society girls reach across the table and clink wine-glasses with
young men, but we do not know what they do before they get to the clink
stage. Nowhere is this information given. Etiquette books are silent on
the subject, and though I have sought everywhere for information, I do
not know to this day how many salted almonds one may consume at dinner
without embarrassing one's hostess. Now, if I can't find out, the
million can't find out. Wherefore, instead of shutting themselves
selfishly up and, by so doing, forcing society finally into dissolution,
why cannot some of these people who know what is what give
object-lessons to the million; educate them in _savoir-faire_?

"Last summer there was a play put on at one of our theatres in which
there was a scene at a race-track. At one side was a tally-ho coach. For
the first week the coach was an utterly valueless accessory, because the
people on it were the ordinary supers in the employ of the theatre. They
did not know how to behave on a coach, and nobody was interested. The
management were suddenly seized with a bright idea. They invited several
swell young men who knew how things were done on coaches to come and do
these things on their coach. The young men came and imparted a realism
to the scene that made that coach the centre of attraction. People who
went to that play departed educated in coach etiquette. Now there lies
my scheme in a nutshell. If these twenty-five, the Old Guard of society,
which dines but never surrenders, will give once a week a social
function in some place like Madison Square Garden, to which the million
may go merely as spectato