Indeed the great man has even given orders to some of the attendants to take notice whether you seem to admire his wife and children sufficiently. Even the servants of the other guests who are present notice your evident embarrassment, and laugh at your ignorance of the ways of society, guessing that you have never been to a regular dinner-party before, and that even the napkin laid for you is something quite new to you. No wonder that you are actually in a cold sweat from embarrassment, and neither venture to ask for drink when you want it, for fear they should think yon a hard drinker, or know which to take first and which last of the various dishes which are arranged before you evidently in some kind of recognised sequence and order. So that you are obliged furtively to watch and imitate what your next neighbour does, and so make yourself acquainted with the ceremonial of dinner."
"Such," says the letter-writer, after a little more description of the same kind,—"such is your first dinner in a great man's house: I had rather, for my part, have an onion and some salt, and be allowed to eat it when and how I please." Then come the delicate arrangements about salary. When one reads Lucian's description of this, it is almost difficult to believe that he had not before him one of those modern advertisements for a governess, who is expected to possess all the virtues and all the accomplishments, and to whom "a very small salary is offered, as she will be treated as one of the family." "We are quite plain people here, as you see," says the pompous Roman to the new tutor; "but you will consider yourself
