DEAR MISS MANNERS: When my mother died of cancer, I had a lovely service for her in her church. Her "beau" of 26 years had a reception following at his country club, and graciously accepted thanks from my daughter and I, and from the guests. Now, he has come to me and asked me to pay half the cost.

When she was dying, he had asked me to return the custom-designed diamond ring he had made for her early in their courtship. He said that some of the stones had come from his first wife's ring. My mother was too lost on morphine, too weak and only able to say "yes" or "no," but she still understood what was going on.

How should I respond to these requests? The estate is small, under the taxable limit, but I expect that I, as the sole beneficiary because I am the only relative, might be considered to have "money to pay" in this case.

GENTLE READER: "Money to pay off" might be more the way to think about it. What this person is practicing is a sort of social blackmail: He is asking for things to which he is not entitled, knowing that embarrassment will cloud your thinking.

Note that this is an etiquette opinion, not a legal one. Socially, one cannot appoint a co-host retroactively, nor claim back presents whose sentimental claim to the giver has just been recalled after 26 years. So, there is no question of propriety that should make you feel pressured to do this. But you should find out whether he can make enough of a claim on the estate to make a further nuisance of himself.

Miss Manners' own inclination would be to pay for the entire wake, out of contempt for his participation in it -- in exchange for a binding agreement that he not continue to annoy you -- but to keep the ring -- to annoy him.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I work with a group of women who have a question about communication with our new boss. He has a very serious stutter that occasionally makes some of us uncomfortable because we do not know how to respond. When he gets "stuck" on a letter for as long as 15 to 20 seconds, do we continue to make eye contact, look at the ground or try to finish his sentence for him? Please help with some advice on communicating with someone who stutters.

GENTLE READER: Are you telling Miss Manners that 20 seconds is too much of your valuable time to waste waiting to hear what your boss has to say? Especially since you can apparently anticipate everything he is going to say? More to the point, is that what you want to tell your boss?

Miss Manners would think that prudence would suggest, as politeness requires, that you maintain eye contact with your boss when he is addressing you. It is the content of what he says, not his stutter, that requires a response.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: While at college, I maintained contact via e-mail with a boy with whom I graduated from high school. He and I are not good friends, although we get along fairly well, and the e-mail arrangement worked quite well.

However, now that I am home for the summer, he calls every day, managing, somehow, to time the call exactly as I am getting out of bed. He wants to get together. Our conversations run something like this:

He: Do you want to hang out?

Me: No, I'm sorry.

He: Why?

Me: I can't.

He: Why not?

Me: I have things to do.

He: What do you have to do?

At this point, I have a problem due to the fact that the only thing I really have to do is think of an excuse why I can't see him. The way in which he questions me makes it impossible for me to simply decline. If I say that I have a prior engagement, he wants to know what, where, with whom and for how long it will last.

The basic fact of the matter is that I find him boring and don't enjoy his company, but I can't tell him that! In the past week, I have resorted to lying about my plans to avoid seeing him, but I feel guilty about this.

Is there any polite way to express my lack of interest? I can't make up excuses all summer long. I'm running out of ideas.

GENTLE READER: Here are some: Caller ID. Telling him his calls are disturbing the household. Both of those, along with the suggestion that he return to communicating with you by e-mail, allow you to delay answering and ignore impertinent questions.

But Miss Manners observes from the example of your dialogue that you are pretty good at the non-excuse reply, which is all that is needed. You just gave up on the technique too early. It should have continued:

You: Lots of things. In fact, I have to go right now.

He: When will you be finished?

You: Well, I hope by the time I have to go back to college in the fall. It's going to be a busy summer. I hope you have a nice summer, and I'm sorry that I won't have a chance to see you. 'Bye.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: My son, who is gay, will be visiting my wife and me for a weekend in the summer, and he is bringing his boyfriend along. They have been together for two years, but have never visited before. When my daughter visits with her boyfriend, they share the same room.

I am unsure if the boys want to share a room, or if this arrangement will be uncomfortable to my wife. I don't want to raise an issue if there isn't one, so the solution I have come up with is to make up both guest rooms and let my son decide, and let my wife know that this should be our son's decision.

GENTLE READER: No, you really don't want to raise the issue, as the example of your wife's not minding cohabitation with boyfriends is so close at hand. Even your solution goes a tad too far.

All you need do is to tell your wife that you have made up both bedrooms. Miss Manners trusts it will not be necessary to dissuade her from patrolling the halls at night.

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DEAR MISS MANNERS: My family and I never grew up with dogs or any kind of animal inside our house, partly due to our allergies. So naturally, when we go to a house that does have animals, it makes us a little uncomfortable. I don't want to pet a dog or a cat for fear that I might then touch my eyes or nose and have an allergic reaction.

When I am a guest in the house of someone who has an animal, I feel obligated to pet it because it's considered one of their children.

Is it rude not to pet it at all? If I do pet it, I want to run to the bathroom and wash my hands immediately. Would this be considered rude as well? What do you do when a pet is insistent that you pet it?

I also have a problem with dogs begging for food at the table when I'm trying to enjoy my meal. I know I'm not the only one who feels this way. It's not always the allergies that bother me; sometimes I just don't want to pet the animal if it's not well groomed.

GENTLE READER: Hold on there. You say you have to pet these animals because they are like the hosts' children? So, you think you have to pet your hosts' children?

No, no, no. You may be in a position where politeness will require you to express admiration for the children, the pets or both, but that is different. People who cannot express admiration while keeping their hands to themselves are apt to end up in a heap of trouble.

Not that most people mind others' petting their dogs, although the dogs sometimes do. If the pet makes overtures, you certainly have an easy excuse if you back off and plead your allergies (to the host; dogs don't seem to care). People who don't have allergies do it all the time.

It is not necessary, however. You need only say, "I'm afraid I'm not good with dogs, so I prefer to admire him from afar." This also works if people thrust unwelcome babies in your lap, although you must remember to substitute the word "children" for "dogs."

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I write on behalf of about a dozen friends and colleagues of all ages who have not taken their husbands' surnames, but who receive mail addressed as, for example, "Mrs. Sean Brown" when the woman's last name is "Stone." We all find it very insulting.

Isn't it proper to inquire what surname a newly married woman will be using? Usually, an inquiry is not even necessary. When my husband and I sent thank you cards to the people who attended our wedding, and "at home" cards to those who did not, his last name was clearly noted as "Brown" and mine as "Stone."

Since a clear majority of women today -- and a significant minority of women I know in their 50s and 60s -- do not take their husbands' surnames, why do some people persist in addressing a woman who, in fact, does not exist? My friends and I look forward to reading your thoughts on this and hope it will spark the writers of etiquette books to update their manuals.

GENTLE READER: For at least the last 20 years, a clear majority of the writers of etiquette manuals have been telling people to address people as they wish to be addressed, warning that there are now several choices and one should pay special attention after weddings and divorces to see which was selected. A significant minority does so.

Miss Manners made up that statistic, of course, but you also made up yours. She merely wishes to make the point that not everyone pays close attention to change. Unless you know that your correspondents' intention is to insult you, you ought to assume that it was inattention to change, rather than meanness, which prompted them. Miss Manners has graciously made that assumption about your inattention to what is actually being written in etiquette manuals.

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