Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 16.djvu/129

Rh servants, and you do no wrong to your master or lady.

If you serve a country 'squire, when gentlemen and ladies come to dine at your house, never fail to make their servants drunk, and especially the coachman, for the honour of your master: to which in all your actions you must have a special regard, as being the best judge: for the honour of every family is deposited in the hands of the cook, the butler, and the groom, as I shall hereafter demonstrate.

Snuff the candles at supper as they stand on the table, which is much the securest way: because, if the burning snuff happens to get out of the snuffers, you have a chance that it may fall into a dish of soup, sackposset, rice-milk, or the like, where it will be immediately extinguished with very little stink.

When you have snuffed the candle, always leave the snuffers open, for the snuff will of itself burn away to ashes, and cannot fall out and dirty the table when you snuff the candles again.

That the salt may lie smooth in the saltcellar, press it down with your moist palm.

When a gentleman is going away after dining with your master, be sure to stand full in view, and follow him to the door, and as you have opportunity, look full in his face, perhaps it may bring you a shilling; but if the gentleman has lain there a night, get the cook, the housemaid, the stablemen, the scullion, and gardiner, to accompany you, and to stand in his way to the hall in a line on each side of him: if the gentleman performs handsomely, it will do him honour, and cost your master nothing.

You need not wipe your knife to cut bread for the table, because in cutting a slice or two it will wipe itself. Put