Mrs. Toplofty

requests the pleasure of

[Name of guest is written on this line.]

company at the theater and a small dance afterward

in honor of her great-niece

Miss Millicent Gilding

on Tuesday the sixth of January

at half past eight o’clock

R.s.v.p.

But—­and usually—­the “general utility” invitation (see page 118) is filled in, as follows: 

[HW:  To meet Miss Millicent Gilding]

Mrs. Toplofty

requests the pleasure of

[HW:  Miss Rosalie Gray’s]

company at [HW:  the Theater and at a dance]

on [HW:  Tuesday the sixth of January]

at [HW:  8:15]

R.s.v.p.

Or notes in either wording above are written by hand.

All those who accept have a ticket sent them.  Each ticket sent a debutante is accompanied by a visiting card on which is written: 

    “Be in the lobby of the Comedy Theater at 8.15.  Order your motor
    to come for you at 010 Fifth Avenue at 1 A.M.”

On the evening of the theater party, Mrs. Toplofty herself stands in the lobby to receive the guests.  As soon as any who are to sit next to each other have arrived, they are sent into the theater; each gives her (or his) ticket to an usher and sits in the place alloted to her (or him).  It is well for the hostess to have a seat plan for her own use in case thoughtless young people mix their tickets all up and hand them to an usher in a bunch!  And yet—­if they do mix themselves to their own satisfaction, she would better “leave them” than attempt to disturb a plan that may have had more method in it than madness.

When the last young girl has arrived, Mrs. Toplofty goes into the theater herself (she does not bother to wait for any boys), and in this one instance she very likely sits in a stage box so as to “keep her eye on them,” and with her she has two or three of her own friends.

After the theater, big motor busses drive them all either to the house of the hostess or to a hotel for supper and to dance.  If they go to a hotel, a small ballroom must be engaged and the dance is a private one; it would be considered out of place to take a lot of very young people to a public cabaret.

Carelessly chaperoned young girls are sometimes, it is true, seen in very questionable places because some of the so-called dancing restaurants are perfectly fit and proper for them to go to; many other places however, are not, and for the sake of general appearances it is safer to make it a rule that no very young girl should go anywhere after the theater except to a private house or a private dance or ball.

Older people, on the other hand, very often go for a supper to one of the cabarets for which New York is famous (or infamous?), or perhaps go to watch a vaudeville performance at midnight, or dance, or do both together.