NEWPORT
The correct treatment of a foreigner in Newport is to gush over him, praise him to your friends, and invite him to your entertainments. This course may be pursued for one week. After that, treat him with great reserve and coolness for the same period of time. At the beginning of the third week you should abuse him roundly, and take pains to recite the hidden and secret passages of his past. Advice for the fourth week is unnecessary: they never last more than three.
Sea bathing at Newport is often injurious to the health, as in the case of those ladieswhose figures are a trifle too meagre—or too ample. To such sirens the doctor is sure to forbid it. Where, however, the outlines are visually “grateful and comforting,” the exercise is certain to prove beneficial and bracing. In all Newport there are about a dozen ladies whose physicians have no such prejudices against open air, salt water bathing.
Dakota divorces are still a good deal frowned upon in thebeau monde. Try to remember that only Rhode Island divorces arecomme il faut. (The Newport variety is far smarter than the Providence or Bristol brand.) Dakota divorces are a trifle cheaper and more expeditious, but it should be borne in mind that the climate of Sioux Falls is very variable and that the hotels and theaters are, to say the least, indifferent.
Millionaires from the West whose wives are bent upon breaking into society at any cost, should not try Newport until the simpler safes have been cracked. Newport is the water jump of the social steeplechase, and should not be taken until the easier gates have been successfully negotiated. The safest graded order of jumps is as follows:
At Newport the hostess usually retires at about 1.30. This should be the signal for all the bachelors, diplomats, and foreigners who are stopping with her, to ask the butler for carriages and motors to convey them to Canfield’s (a fashionable roulette and chicken-salad parlor).
A bachelor stopping with friends in Newport should never lunch or dine in their house. It is more jaunty to dine out. Ifthey are truly considerate, they will supply him with red morocco “in-and-out” signs which he can manipulate, in accordance with his engagements, in the entrance hall.
After a week or so, if he has not yet seen his host or hostess and is preparing to leave Newport, it is sometimes thoughtful and kind to send a card up to their rooms by a servant, thanking them for their hospitality.