THE MAN IN SCARLET

Southland Times, Issue 22051, 26 June 1933, Page 12

THE MAN IN SCARLET

TOASTMASTER’S DRESS. INNOVATION IN MELBOURNE. OFFICIAL OF MANY DUTIES. Enterprise and etiquette rarely go hand in hand. They do so, however, in the case of Mr Frank Nicholas, of Auburn, Melbourne’s first professional toastmaster. Clad in his scarlet dress coat, he is becoming a familiar figure on public occasions on which he is the arbiter, if not of elegance, at any rate of etiquette, and yet it is only nine months since he made his first public appearance. It was upon the late Mr W. Knight Smith, London’s most famous toastmaster, who was an intimate of princes and statesmen, says the Argus, that Mr Nicholas modelled both his dress—which is really a survival of the day when the guild toastmaster was distinguished from guests and waiters by a scarlet sash—and his duties. Having announced his guests his first cry from his post behind the chairman is, ‘Gentlemen, I pray you silence for the grace.” He then quietly effaces himself. The toastmaster goes out with the grace and comes back with “The King.” It is he who, when the loyal toast has been honoured, announces the permission to smoke. It is he also who quietly but firmly remonstrates with any untutored diner who anticipates that permission. The stentorian voice which ic the first essential to his office sinks on that occasion to a shocked whisper. It is essential that the toastmaster should be an unimpeachable authority on precedence. Decorations, too, must "have no terrors for him; he knows that the King’s decorations come first and he so places them when he announces the proposers, the seconders, and the responsers to toasts or the addresses and items of entertainment. It is in dealing with the untoward incident—the seatless diner, the “gatecrasher," the noisy interrupter, the bursting bottle, or the missing waiter—however, that the toastmaster proves his worth. Who but a toastmaster, for instance, would have been so prompt to the rescue when a shrieking microphone suddenly drowned the voice of a distinguished speaker at a receiy dinner? It was easy—he telephone!* the broadcasting station—but the effect was as remarkable as if he had callef out the fire-brigade and the police patrol. Mr Nicholas, who has been in evidence at a number of public schools dinners lately, was formerly a schoolmaster. Being a toastmaster is only a spare-time avocation, but it bids fair to become his mission in life.