NEW YORK: The Correct Form

After sunset, tens of thousands of New Yorkers and visitors to the big city feel a lemming-like urge to go nightclubbing. The way is usually beset by obstacles and hazards: doormen dressed like admirals, headwaiters with manners like Gestapo agents, blonde Mata Haris of the checkroom, silk ropes, and other frustrated pilgrims awaiting admission. But the lemmings are not discouraged; they bribe, push and plead for the privilege of paying $8 to $125 a couple for dining, drinking blended rye at saucer-sized tables, breathing smoke and carbon monoxide and getting their eardrums clouted by a boogie woogie beat.

It is not so much relaxation as experience. It is a social game with a set of rules all its own. Last week the New York Post’s brassy Columnist Earl Wilson laid down the most fundamental:

Q. Should I dress?

A. It is advisable to wear a little something, unless, of course, you are a chorus girl, Gypsy Rose Lee, or a prominent society lady.

Q. What is the correct way to greet the headwaiter?

A. The correct form … is: “Here, Joe, old boy, is a 20, how’s about fixing me up with a table and I don’t want one in the Polar Region.” (Editor’s note: behind a pole.) If he says no, make it a50, as I happen to know the poor guy . . . has a tough struggle buying a home on Park Avenue.

Q. Is there any special etiquette about drinking?

A. A gentleman cannot be too careful of whom he passes out in front of.

Q. How do I handle the pretty girl photographers?

A. Don’t try it, mister.

Q. Is it considered chic to haggle with the waiter over the fact that he seems to have multiplied my check instead of adding it?

A. No, these little mathematical errors should be tolerantly overlooked; otherwise you may be taken to the police station and interrogated with a blackjack.

Q. We would like to get one of those lovely chorus girls over to our table for a chat. Do they make good conversationalists ?

A. They will make any kind of a conversationalist.

Q. Those Latin dancing girls at the Havana-Madrid … are they really Latin?

A. Yes. Some come from as far away as Brooklyn.

Q. What is a reasonable tip?

A. Stop right there. Who said anything about reasonable? Give the waiter 20%, the captain a dollar or two dollars, the hatcheck girl 25 or 50¢, the powder-room attendant a quarter, the doorman a quarter and the beggar in front of the door a quarter—then switch with the beggar.