Social Spot Cash

THE CONTRIBUTORS’ CLUB

SUPPOSE you bid me come to your house to dinner, and suppose I accept, and, feeling that I shall repay you by feeding you at some future time, I give myself no concern over my obligation to you on that occasion. Let us suppose that I count my duty done by being properly clothed and punctual. You have asked others to be present with whom you are on pleasant terms, and you are anxious that they think well of you. I have no tongue for small talk and can’t bother about trifles; you are giving the dinner-party and are supposed to know what you want. If you want me, you must take me as I am; I’ll come and behave properly — by which you are to understand that I shall not get drunk or mess my food; you must n’t expect more. So I proceed to spoil your dinner-party by not doing anything. I ’m tired, anyway, — or at least I think I am, — and by my dull and boorish bearing I make every one near me uncomfortable. Those new neighbors whom you have at your house for the first time are very interesting people; it is a good and illuminating thing to know them; but after that disagreeable evening with me they are calmly but firmly resolved that your house is a place to avoid. The professor whom you have always wanted to know better, now in town on consultation, was fortunately able to be present; he said he would be very glad to come; but he was not glad when he went away. You see, I was there, and I made talk impossible; my heavy, uninterested silence killed all joy. I satisfy my previous consciousness by saying to myself that I was not interested in the subjects under discussion, and I give you credit for having fed me well. Then, having given you a social black-eye, I make things what I call even by inviting you to spoil a second and otherwise good evening by boring yourself with me.

It is clear that in behaving in the manner just described I have made an error; and the error is one frequently made. The purpose of this writing is to discover, if possible, what the nature of this error is, and to find an expression for it that we may all understand; not only you who have suffered by it, but I who, to keep myself in the character, must call myself the ‘innocent’ cause of it.

The answer is neither involved nor far to seek. Social intercourse is commerce, in a way. We must pay for what we get, but general welfare and comity require that we pay spot cash. We can’t pay in money because that is not current social coin. If the conventions did not bar the way and make it an insult, it would be far better for you if, on the unhappy night when I spoiled your party, I had taken out my pocket-book and laid down upon the table the cost of the food and drink and service. You would have been rid of me so much sooner, and you would not have been called upon to endure the second evening with me. But if money — dollars and cents — is not current social coin, neither are food and drink; although in this respect convention lags far-and-away-behind. Convention does not forbid me to do the very thing that I have assumed to do: to eat your food to-day and take a long credit, paying you back in kind, next week or next month. In point of fact, that is not paying you back at all, as we have seen.

The only way that I can possibly repay you is to make my presence worth while, and an advantage to you. The debt should be paid before I leave your threshold, and I must have intelligence enough to know how to pay it. By a miscalculation of the sort you made when you invited me in the first instance, you may have asked some one to come whom you thought to be a brilliant talker, and who turns out on this occasion to be one of those dreadful creatures who prove the wisdom of all misanthropy by combating everybody and everything, and grating upon the nerves of every mortal soul present. If I cannot quiet him or draw his breeziness upon me alone so that others have an opportunity to breathe and talk, it behooves me to sit still and be good. They also serve who only sit still and are good. But ‘good’ means, in the circle, a part of whatever good fellowship is available.

When you open your house to your friends you do a brave and a gracious thing. You show yourself, your training, the measure of your culture, and the things of which you are ashamed. Your intimate self is made visible. You may put on airs for your own satisfaction, but you know and I know that anybody can see through them. Your house is yourself, or your wife’s self; and surely there is no cause for shame in admitting that hers is the master mind when the day’s work is over and you are at home. This is true of so many men of the very best sort that it will do you no harm to admit it. And it will do you no good to deny it.

Suppose a clumsy maid spills a plate of soup. If clothes are damaged it is mortifying, and it may mean that some work must be done to the floor to repair the injury; otherwise it is not a serious occurrence. But if I or any other of your guests offends any one, then harm is done, for which you are in a way responsible, and which rubbing and scrubbing will not repair. So the responsibility of every guest is a heavy one. You have bidden them come inside the line of your defenses, and your social reputation is in their hands. No matter how great your effort or expense, every one should then and there pay back in the coin of agreeable good fellowship, as nearly as he can, in full for all value received.

Social reciprocity, the idea that if you feed me I must feed you, or if you entertain me I must entertain you, is born of social inefficiency. Who the first lady of fashion or quality was who devised the present system of food exchanges as the fulfillment of social amenities, we shall never know; but it is a fair guess that her lord married her solely for her money. Or if the custom became current by common consent, then the custom itself is a severe indictment of dullness against that part of society which is known as fashionable because it furnishes the example which the rest of the world accepts and emulates.

There is no such thing as a deferred social credit; the only real payment is in spot cash.