E V Lucas

Adventures and Enthusiasms E V Lucas

It is less common, although also unobjectionable, to hear people felicitate with themselves on being good guests. Indeed, I have lately met two or three who quite impenitently asserted the reverse; and I believe that I am of their company. Trying very hard to be good I can never lose sight of the fact that my host's house is not mine. Fixed customs must be surrendered, lateness must become punctuality, cigarette ends must not burn the mantelpiece, one misses one's own China tea. The bathroom is too far and other people use it. There is no hook for the strop. In short, to be a really good guest and at ease under alien roofs it is necessary, I suspect, to have no home ties of one's own; certainly to have no very tyrannical habits. I cut recently from the Spectator this rhymed analysis of the perfect guest: She answered, by return of post, The invitation of her host; She caught the train she said she would, And changed at junctions as she should; She brought a small and lightish box, And keys belonging to the locks. Food, rare and rich, she did not beg, But ate the boiled or scrambled egg; When offered lukewarm tea she drank it, And did not crave an extra blanket, Nor extra pillows for her head; She seemed to like the spare-room bed. She brought her own self-filling pen, And always went to bed at ten. She left no little things behind, But stories new and gossip kind. Those verses seem to me to cover the ground, although one might want a change here and there.