[Sidenote: YOUR DINING PLACE]
DON'T begin by resorting habitually to the Quick Lunch. Nobody ever made
_friends_ at a Quick Lunch, except with the waitresses. Select a good
place where there are lots of fellows whom you will see continually. You
ought to pick out some good friends from among them.
[Sidenote: YOUR TABLE]
_Don't_ attempt, in a large dining hall, to get a place at a society,
club, or athletic table for which you have _not yet qualified_. You are
liable to _queer yourself_ from the start.
[Sidenote: TABLE TALK]
_Don't_ try continually to air the sum of _knowledge_ which you are
just assimilating. There are _few_ things more pathetic than the
first-year chemist who keeps asking you at table to "pass the NaCl," or
the fledgling psychologist who would try to prove that bread-and-butter
is matter for _the mind_ and not for _the stomach_.
[Sidenote: LOCAL EGOTISM]
_Don't_ keep telling how they do things in that part of the country
which _you_ come from. The assumption is, that since you came to
College, you are willing to _learn something_ of how they do things
here.
[Sidenote: LISTENING TO OTHERS]
_Don't monopolize the conversation_ at the table, especially if there
are older men around. You'll get yourself snubbed if you talk _too_ much
about _yourself_. Fellows don't care much whether your grandfather kept
a brake and ten horses, or drove a "shay" over the _plank-road_. Be a
good listener. Then, too, older men _like_ to be listened to. The
chances are you will learn a _sight_ more by hearing them than they will
by hearing _you_.
[Illustration: DONT MONOPOLIZE THE _CONVERSATION_ AT THE TABLE]
[Sidenote: KNOCKING THE GRUB]
_Don't_ continually _find fault_ with the things you have to eat. Act as
if you were used _to eating away from home_. Half the time the jokes you
make at the expense of the food come merely from an uncontrollable
desire to air your wit. "Knocking the grub" doesn't require _half_ so
much brains or individuality as _shutting up_ about it.