Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 16.djvu/144

136 for a better servant, too good to hold a plate; this will secure it from falling, and thus disposed, it lies ready for you to whip out in a moment ready warmed to any guest within your reach, who may want it. And lastly, there is another convenience in this method, that if at any time during your waiting you find yourself going to cough or sneeze, you can immediately snatch out the plate, and hold the hollow part close to your nose or mouth, and thus prevent spirting any moisture from either upon the dishes or the ladies dress; you see gentlemen and ladies observe a like practice on such an occasion, with a hat or a handkerchief; yet a plate is less fouled and sooner cleaned than either of these; for, when your cough or sneeze is over, it is but returning your plate to the same position, and your shirt will clean it in the passage.

Take off the largest dishes, and set them on, with one hand, to show the ladies your vigour and strength of back; but always do it between two ladies, that if the dish happens to slip, the soup or sauce may fall on their clothes, and not daub the floor; by this practice, two of our brethren, my worthy friends, got considerable fortunes.

Learn all the new-fashion words, and oaths, and songs, and scraps of plays that your memory can hold. Thus you will become the delight of nine ladies in ten, and the envy of ninety-nine beaux in a hundred.

Take care, that at certain periods, during dinner especially, when persons of quality are there, you and your brethren be all out of the room together; by which you will give yourselves some ease from the fatigue of waiting, and at the same time leave the company