The Pittsburgh Press from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania • Page 44

D10 The Pittsburgh Press Friday. July 24. ivs7 Here's a little dab of napkin etiquette for curious diners in wyigii milium i How can I politely get them to leave without sticking my husband with the task of entertaining them? I am starting to dread their visits. REPLY: What you need, to go with your new marriage and your new house, is a new policy on entertaining. Miss Manners suggests you begin with a rule against entertaining on work nights.

When someone offers to drop by, you reply: "Oh, dear, we'd love to see you, but tonight is out of newlywed and new homeowner. Single friends occasionally visit my husband and me, not only on the weekend but also during the week. The problem is the length of their stay. I am an early riser and need eight hours of sleep to function efficiently at my job. My husband, his friends and my friends have desk jobs and banker's hours.

When his friends visit and the hour becomes late, I politely excuse myself and retire, leaving my husband to entertain them. Is this proper? When my friends call and say they are stopping for a visit during the week, I make it a point to say that I need my sleep and plan on retiring around 10. This has not done any good; they still stay past 11, sometimes 12 even 2 or 3 a.m. at weekends. problem with table manners and the social graces, but she has such a superior attitude toward many things and feels that she is correct in 'everything she does.

Wouldn't it have been simpler had she just removed her napkin like everyone else? REPLY: There are several etiquette questions here, each of a different nature. 1. The Napkin Question. 2. The Following-Suit Question.

3. The Stony-faced Daughter-in-law Question. 1. The Napkin Question doesn't seem to interest you much, but it interests Miss Manners. She has long thought it a ridiculous nuisance, amounting to a minor insult, to have waiters assume the task of putting people's napkins on their laps.

Soon they'll be dabbing our chins for us the question. We just don't have the energy to socialize when we have to get up early." (Note that the excuse of tiredness is more acceptable than the one of wanting to spend time alone, which, while perfectly understandable, not only suggests that friends are intruders, but leads to newlywed jokes ot questionable taste.) RS QQGQCP (HMO fPPniR UoLiLlJlJiJ MISS MARINERS By Judith Martin that? Including those you supposed were noticing from other tables? 3. However, if the daughter-in-law is really making a show of distin guishing her behavior from yours, and the stony face is a conspicuous dramatization of disapproval of the rest of the family, then, yes, she has been rude. DEAR MISS MANNERS: I am a mm 3H 0 mm and saying, "One more bite for Kevin-Your-Waiter." 2. Had you actually committed an etiquette violation, which you did not, it would not have been necessary for your daughter-in-law to do so as well.

Suppose you knocked over the water glass would she have to do so, too? It is a little known fact of etiquette that IT IS RUDE TO MONITOR OTHER PEOPLE'S TABLE MANNERS. Did everybody hear Co DEAR MISS MANNERS: After being shown to our table at an elegant restaurant, my husband, son and I removed the pleated napkins from our plates and placed them on. our laps. But my daughter-in-law sat stone-faced and very proper until a waiter arrived and removed her napkin from her plate, placing it on her lap. I felt that she had committed a faux pas by not following suit, after seeing that we had placed our own napkins on our laps thus causing me to feel a bit uncomfortable.

I have had dinner in many elegant restaurants, and in some the waiters remove the napkins, but in others, they don't. I was under the impression that either was correct. Was my daughter-in-law correct in making it so obvious to anyone watching that we appeared to be ignorant of this procedure? I have no Phipps from page Dl Philadelphia building where Henry Phipps Jr. was born in 1839, the son of Henry Phipps Sr. and Hannah Frank Phipps who had emigrated from Shropshire, England.

In 1845, the couple and their four children moved to Allegheny (now Pittsburgh's North Side). Phipps' neighbors were William and Margaret Carnegie and their sons, Andrew and Tom. The friendships that started then continued through the rest of Carnegie's and Phipps' lives. As young men, Andrew Carnegie and Henry Phipps traveled together. As businessmen they worked and prospered together.

As family men they socialized together. An 1866 photograph catches Phipps, Carnegie and J. W. Vande-vort on their first trip abroad. Many of the photographs are charming records of the affluent life in the last quarter of the 19th century and the first quarter of the Especially artistic are stylized group pictures that could have been posed by Georges Seurat for "Sunday in the Park with George." Henry (Harry to his friends) Phipps was an inveterate traveler.

An 1879 portrait taken in Ceylon shows Phipps wearing a safari-like outfit. As Phipps advised his eldest son, Jay, letters written between father and family members were stored away and saved. Co-author Gachot found more than 2,000 of them while researching for an architectural history of the Westbury mansion. The pictures and letters were invaluable in tracing the early days of the family. Phipps' traveling days ended in 1915 when he became ill.

He was' bedridden for most of the next 15 years until his death in 1930. Peggie Phipps Boegner contributes most of the material in the final two-thirds of "Halcyon Days." Pittsburgh has no part in the Phipps family history after the early 1900s, but the lives of members of this family continue to be of interest. They lived in a special, privileged world available to only a small segment of the society of their day. (Sylvia Sachs is The Pittsburgh Press book editor.) Are curbs on smoking riling you? If you're a smoker with an employer who has instituted a policy limiting smoking or segregating smokers, how are you adjusting? Are you angry? Are you taking more breaks? Is living with less nicotine on the job driving you insane, or has it turned out to be an easier transition than you thought? We'd like you to share your experiences for a Pittsburgh Press story. Please call Peter King at 263-1987.

Fashionably early to help you sell Fall Fashion, a full-color preview of the season's hottest apparel and accessories, will be part of THE PITTSBURGH Press Sunday Magazine on September 13. Advertisers reach 1.5 million adults in the 18-county ADI, 782,000 women whose thoughts arc just starting to turn to warmer fabrics, deeper, richer colors. Ad-enhancing color is available, lends dramatic impact to your new fall lines. For more information, call Mary Bordt at 263-1366 Space reservations due by Friday, August 7. I 0 liW iff 1 SIS? Pi HI- ITTSBURGH PUS9 SUNDAY MAGAZINE.