I borrow the title from an article which has caused me much montu anguish, and brought on a severe attack of social chilblains. Before reading it I went on my simple, are trea way, dining and being dined, accepting when I could, inviting where I might, heartily enjoying the prandial sociabilities, but always, as now perceive with pain, in a sadly amateur fashion. Indeed deserved to be classed with those vneritical souls to whom, in the language of Lewis Carroll in Phantasmagoria, "dinner is dinner, tea is tea."
But now JI realize my shortcomings, and far from contemplating the giving of any dinner parties in the future, I am not only nervous about accepting any invitations but shall almost hesitate to dine at all First I read that the three indispensable features for a pleasant dinner are a "Cabinet Minister, a duchess, and a beautiful woman." Here in Shanghai the most carping will not insist upon the inclusion of the Cabinet Minister and the duchess, but the matter of the beautiful woman gives us to pause.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.