Never:

A Hand-Book for the Uninitiated
and Inexperienced
Aspirants to Refined Society’s
Giddy Heights
and Glittering Attainments.

1

2

3

4

Stereotyped by
Samuel Stodder,
42 Dey Street, N. Y.

5

Prelude.

This little book is cordially recommendedto all parties just hesitating on the plush-padded,gilt-edged threshold of our highest socialcircles.

In purely business affairs, it may not be asuseful as Hoyle’s Games, or Locke on theHuman Understanding, but a careful study ofits contents cannot but prove the “Open Sesame”to that jealously-guarded realm,—good society,—in6which you aspire to circulate freely and shinewith becoming luster.

“It is easier for a needle to pass through acamel’s eye,” says Poor Richard, or some one else,“than for a poor young man to enter the mansionsof the rich.” And I, the author of thiscode of warnings, as truly say unto you, that acontemptuous disregard of the same will be likelyto lead you into mortification and embarrassment,if not into being incontinently kicked out of doors.

While intended chiefly for the young, not theless may the old, the decrepit, and the infirm like-wiserejoice in the possession of the rules and prohibitionsherein contained, and hasten to committhem to memory.7

But the memory is treacherous.

It would, therefore, be well for such personsto carry the Hand Book constantly with them, tobe referred to on short notice wherever they maychance to be—in the street-car, in the drawing-room,on the promenade, on the ball-room floor, attable, while visiting, and so on.

In this way the Hand Book will be like themagic ring that pricked the we