The Art of Writing a "Wet" Invitation

How to Bait Your Social Hook in These Trying Days of Drought

GEORGE S. CHAPPELL

IF you have been going out at all this season, you have doubtless observed that a new note has crept into our invitations, a note of suggestion, a sort of advance notice that the party is not going to be absolutely according to our recently amended constitution. I mention the matter in case it may have escaped you; and also as a hint to hosts and hostesses that it is very important, if you propose to serve anything stronger than one-half of one per cent to your prospective guests, so to advise them. Otherwise, you will probably have a one-half of one per cent attendance.

Frankly, the average person on receiving an invitation nowadays looks it over with one thought uppermost in his mind, a thought which takes the form of a question, namely, "Is this gathering going to be an oasis or a Sahara ?"

Upon the answer to that question depends his acceptance or rejection.

Most hostesses are fully aware of this. Our modem society ladies may not yet know exactly what to do with the vote, but, believe me, when it comes to luring the vagrant male into their salons, they are thoroughly abreast of the times. In my fairly active career, I receive a great many invitations. This I ascribe to my unfailing kindness to old ladies and Pekinese dogs. In the matter of small talk, too, I have memorized several lines which are more microscopic than anything of the sort you have ever heard. Result, social success.

However, to return to my subject. Upon receiving my morning batch of invitations, it is my present custom to sort them into two piles, which I call the Wet and the Dry. The former, obviously, are those which in their phraseology suggest that the 18th amendment is a jolly old wheeze not intended for you and me and that, anyway, a little light law-breaking once in a while is a good thing. The other pile,—the dry one,—I hardly need mention.

As I say, the modern hostess is so keen and quick to sense the way to make her entertainments attractive that I find my damp division rapidly mounting in number and I have been very much struck by the ingenuity and finesse exhibited in the way the glad tidings are conveyed. For, mark you, there must be no crudity. The bald statement "There will be booze", would never "get by" in-the beau monde. Ah, no, it must be slipped over delicately.

With the idea of helping others, let me quote a few of the sure-fire documents that have haled me fprth during the last six weeks. Here, for instance, reads a very formal card:

Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Spillworthy request the pleasure of your company at dinner, Wednesday evening, December first, at eight o'clock.

That is all very well, as far as it goes, but you can bet your life I should never have accepted the invitation if Mrs. Spillworthy had not jotted down on the margin—"Do come, if you possibly can, and, like a good fellow, bring your corkscrew—Tom lost his in Canada."

Could anything be more subtle? Tom has been to Canada—and Tom has lost his corkscrew. It would be a cowardly act to fail him now.

My old family friend, Mrs. B. Ashford Bramley, is a terrifically formal dame, austere, magnificent and correct. Her at-homes are peopled by great upholstered matrons, billowy bankers, and others of the revoltingly rich. Yet even she recognizes the value of a hint where it will do the most good. Read the following, addressed by Mrs. Bramley not to me, but to my aunt, Miss Agatha Whitford, an old friend of Mrs. Bramley's:

My dear Agatha:

Can you not drop in on Tuesday about five to meet the British special-envoy, Sir Wilfred Wainscoate, who is stopping over en route to Washington. I believe you used to know him years ago when we were at Chillingham. By the by, if you could induce your nephew to come with you, he could be ofreal service to me. Since my husband's departure for the Orient, several large boxes have been sent to me from his club. I am at a loss to know what to do with their contents, which are bottled goods, and which now take up most of the floor space in the small room at the left of my entrance hall. Men always know about these things.

I am, always,

MARY BRAMLEY.

As you may well imagine, Aunt Aggie had no trouble in signing me up for the Ambassadorial function. Her only difficulty was in getting me away from it. It developed into a very snappy tribute to diplomacy and his Excellency sang an excellent tenor to our final rendering of "Here's to 'Bash' Bramley, he's a good old soul."

The Cellar Warming

THE more informal the occasion the easier it is to express persuasively the possibilities of social humidity. This may be neatly done by outlining the games which are to be played. Only recently, one old friend wrote to me, saying:

"Is it outrageous to ask you at this late date if you can go to the theatre with us to-morrow evening? It's Frank Tinney. We will come back to the apartment afterward, for supper. My sister—the one from Sioux City—is with us for a few days and I am anxious to have you meet her. Also, I want you to try a new game Walter has just brought back from.Cuba. 'Bottle, bottle, who's got the bottle?' Really it's killing. Do come if you can."

Naturally I could, and I must say, I find the game admirable!

One of the best examples of what good advance publicity will do was the tremendous success of the dinner dance recently given by the Apthorpe-Wyllyses in their new Tudor mansion. It was all accomplished by a very tactful invitation:

"Mr. and Mrs. Twemys ApthorpeWyllys invite you to attend their informal cellar warming, December seventh, nineteen-twenty."

By the, simple use of the word "cellar" the Apthorpe-Wyllys family leaped into the social lime-light. I think I have never seen so many prominent people in a cellar before. The laundry was packed to suffocation and several charming flirtations were carried on in the coal-bin. It was unfortunate, of course, to attempt to serve the ice cream in the boiler room, but this was entirely forgotten in the general gaiety, as was the fact that Wally Stackpole tipped over a cord of three-foot hickory logs on Mrs. Munday-Munn's back, just as she was reaching for a tray of Green Seal.

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Wedding Presents

WEDDINGS coming within the classification of the more formal functions are of course more difficult to advertise in the way they deserve. The engraved invitation is scarcely the place for any allusions to wassail or cheerio stuff. There is, however, no sort of social gathering which so desperately needs the impetus of a moderate amount of contraband beverage as a wedding. But the clever lady of today easily surmounts this difficulty and conveys to her invitees, through the published list of wedding presents, a very definite idea of what to expect at the reception.

For instance, I clipped from the newspaper yesterday this notice regarding the forthcoming nuptials of lovely Emily Gribble, who is to wed young Harry Mortimer next Tuesday.

"The approaching alliance between the houses of Gribble and Mortimer will unite in matrimony two of New York's oldest families. Friends of the bride will learn with interest that the wedding present of her paternal grandfather, Henry Dodge Gribble, has taken the practical form of a twenty-foot house in East Sixty-third Street. Among other notable gifts already received are a diamond lavalliere—the gift of the groom's parents; twelve dozen Pommery '06, from Mr. and Mrs. Theodore Spanwell; a wedding poem from New York's social laureate, Mr. Otis Spoof; a case of flat silver, from Mrs. Watson Gribble; six cases Glenlivet Scotch, from Mr. and Mrs. McCush, etc."

Do you suppose for a moment, that I could miss the Gribble-Mortimer wedding? Nay, nay, verily I say unto ye, by their presents I shall know them.

Thus we see that, in every form of entertainment, it is possible for you to let your guests know beforehand what they may expect. I need hardly say how desirable this is. I will go further and say that I think it a duty to see to it that they may expect something, however mild. For you may have noticed that the other kind of entertainment— the hard rigid, uncompromisingly dry affairs; lead to one of two things. Either people stay away altogether and the evening is a frost or they go to the other extreme and do so much elaborate stoking-up at home in anticipation of an arid evening that they are all but useless for social purposes. Imagine the embarrassment of a hostess to have all her guests arrive accompanied by an almost visible aura of private stock. And this flask-carrying habit which has resulted from our hasty legislation. What an unattractive thing it is! Young men, yes and young ladies, too, I regret to say, are studded all over with hard, unyielding lumps, where some trick container has been deftly fitted to the curves of nature. When two hip-pockets collide as they will upon a dancing floor, it is like the crash of the beakers in an operatic drinking chorus.

Let our hosts and hostesses realize this. Let them dig into their precious bins and cases, for surely it is evident that there is an unfailing supply when even old ladies have their pet bootleggers, and let them follow the idea I have outlined in wording their invitations eloquently, and then their parties will be tremendous successes.

Oh—and one other "thing, which I almost forgot. Please be sure that my name is on your mailing-list!