Never put your own knife into the butter or the salt if there is a butter-knife and a salt-spoon. If you are compelled to use your own knife, first wipe it as clean as possible on your bread.
Never use your own knife or fork to help another. Use rather the knife or fork of the person you help.
Never send your knife and fork, or either of them, on your plate when you send for a second supply. There are several good reasons for not doing so, and not one good reason for doing so. Never hold your knife and fork meanwhile in your hand, either, but lay them down, and that, too, with something under them--a piece of bread, for example--to protect the table-cloth. Never carry your food to your mouth with any curves or flourishes, unless you want to look as though you were airing your company manners. Better a pound of awkwardness at any time than an ounce of self-consciousness.
Never use a steel knife to cut fruit if there is a silver one.
Never stick your elbows out when you use your knife and fork. Keep them close to your sides.
Having finished using your knife and fork, lay them on your plate, side by side, with the handles pointing a little to your right. This will be taken by an experienced waiter as an intimation that you are ready to have your plate removed.
Whenever you use the fingers to convey anything to the mouth or to remove anything from the mouth, let it be the fingers of the left hand.
When you eat a fruit that has a pit or a skin that is not swallowed, the pit or skin must be removed from the mouth with the fingers of the left hand, or with a spoon or fork in the right. Any other mode is most offensive.
Tea, coffee, chocolate and the like are drunk from the cup and never from the saucer. Put your spoon in the saucer should you send your cup to be refilled; otherwise, it may be left in the cup. Never blow your tea or coffee; if it is too hot to be drunk, wait till it cools.
In handling glasses, keep your fingers a goodly distance from the top, but do not go to the other extreme; and if you handle a goblet or a wine-glass, take hold of the stem only. Take hold of the bowl just above the stem.
In helping yourself to butter, take at once as much as you think you shall require, and try to leave the roll in as good shape as you find it. In returning the knife, do not stick it into the roll, but lay it on the side of the plate.