George Nathan - The Collected Works of H. L. Mencken

The First Man

Did you like the German cooking on the Kronprinz ?

The Second Man

Well, I did and I didn’t. The chicken à la Maryland was very good, but they had it only once. I could eat it every day.

The First Man

Why didn’t you order it?

The Second Man

It wasn’t on the bill.

The First Man

Oh, bill be damned! You might have ordered it anyhow. Make a fuss and you’ll get what you want. These foreigners have to be bossed around. They’re used to it.

The Second Man

I guess you’re right. There was a fellow near me who set up a holler about his room the minute he saw it—said it was dark and musty and not fit to pen a hog in—and they gave him one twice as large, and the chief steward bowed and scraped to him, and the room stewards danced around him as if he was a duke. And yet I heard later that he was nothing but a Bismarck herring importer from Hoboken.

The First Man

Yes, that’s the way to get what you want. Did you have any nobility on board?

The Second Man

Yes, there was a Hungarian baron in the automobile business, and two English sirs. The baron was quite a decent fellow: I had a talk with him in the smoking room one night. He didn’t put on any airs at all. You would have thought he was an ordinary man. But the sirs kept to themselves. All they did the whole voyage was to write letters, wear their dress suits and curse the stewards.

The First Man

They tell me over here that the best eating is on the French lines.

The Second Man

Yes, so I hear. But some say, too, that the Scandinavian lines are best, and then again I have heard people boosting the Italian lines.

The First Man

I guess each one has its points. They say that you get wine free with meals on the French boats.

The Second Man

But I hear it’s fourth-rate wine.

The First Man

Well, you don’t have to drink it.

The Second Man

That’s so. But, as for me, I can’t stand a Frenchman. I’d rather do without the wine and travel with the Dutch. Paris is dead compared with Berlin.

The First Man

So it is. But those Germans are awful sharks. The way they charge in Berlin is enough to make you sick.

The Second Man

Don’t tell me . I have been there. No longer ago than last Tuesday—or was it last Monday?—I went into one of those big restaurants on the Unter den Linden and ordered a small steak, French fried potatoes, a piece of pie and a cup of coffee—and what do you think those thieves charged me for it? Three marks fifty. That’s eighty-seven and a half cents. Why, a man could have got the same meal at home for a dollar. These Germans are running wild. American money has gone to their heads. They think every American they get hold of is a millionaire.

The First Man

The French are worse. I went into a hotel in Paris and paid ten francs a day for a room for myself and wife, and when we left they charged me one franc forty a day extra for sweeping it out and making the bed!

The Second Man

That’s nothing. Here in Innsbruck they charge you half a krone a day taxes .

The First Man

What! You don’t say!

The Second Man

Sure thing. And if you don’t eat breakfast in the hotel they charge you a krone for it anyhow.

The First Man

Well, well, what next? But, after all, you can’t blame them. We Americans come over here and hand them our pocket-books, and we ought to be glad if we get anything back at all. The way a man has to tip is something fearful.

The Second Man

Isn’t it, though! I stayed in Dresden a week, and when I left there were six grafters lined up with their claws out. First came the port eer . Then came——

The First Man

How much did you give the port eer ?

The Second Man

Five marks.

The First Man

You gave him too much. You ought to have given him about three marks, or, say, two marks fifty. How much was your hotel bill?

The Second Man

Including everything?

The First Man

No, just your bill for your room.

The Second Man

I paid six marks a day.

The First Man

Well, that made forty-two marks for the week. Now the way to figure out how much the port eer ought to get is easy: a fellow I met in Baden-Baden showed me how to do it. First, you multiply your hotel bill by two, then you divide it by twenty-seven, and then you knock off half a mark. Twice forty-two is eighty-four. Twenty-seven into eighty-four goes about three times, and half from three leaves two and a half. See how easy it is?

The Second Man

It looks easy, anyhow. But you haven’t got much time to do all that figuring.

The First Man

Well, let the port eer wait. The longer he has to wait the more he appreciates you.

The Second Man

But how about the others?

The First Man

It’s just as simple. Your chambermaid gets a quarter of a mark for every day you have been in the hotel. But if you stay less than four days she gets a whole mark anyhow. If there are two in the party she gets half a mark a day, but no more than three marks in any one week.

The Second Man

But suppose there are two chambermaids? In Dresden there was one on day duty and one on night duty. I left at six o’clock in the evening, and so they were both on the job.

The First Man

Don’t worry. They’d have been on the job anyhow, no matter when you left. But it’s just as easy to figure out the tip for two as for one. All you have to do is to add fifty per cent. and then divide it into two halves, and give one to each girl. Or, better still, give it all to one girl and tell her to give half to her pal. If there are three chambermaids, as you sometimes find in the swell hotels, you add another fifty per cent. and then divide by three. And so on.

The Second Man

I see. But how about the hall porter and the floor waiter?

The First Man

Just as easy. The hall porter gets whatever the chambermaid gets, plus twenty-five per cent.—but no more than two marks in any one week. The floor waiter gets thirty pfennigs a day straight, but if you stay only one day he gets half a mark, and if you stay more than a week he gets two marks flat a week after the first week. In some hotels the hall porter don’t shine shoes. If he don’t he gets just as much as if he does, but then the actual “boots” has to be taken care of. He gets half a mark every two days. Every time you put out an extra pair of shoes he gets fifty per cent. more for that day. If you shine your own shoes, or go without shining them, the “boots” gets half his regular tip, but never less than a mark a week.

The Second Man

Certainly it seems simple enough. I never knew there was any such system.

The First Man

I guess you didn’t. Very few do. But it’s just because Americans don’t know it that these foreign blackmailers shake ’em down. Once you let the port eer see that you know the ropes, he’ll pass the word on to the others, and you’ll be treated like a native.

The Second Man

I see. But how about the elevator boy? I gave the elevator boy in Dresden two marks and he almost fell on my neck, so I figured that I played the sucker.

The First Man

So you did. The rule for elevator boys is still somewhat in the air, because so few of these bum hotels over here have elevators, but you can sort of reason the thing out if you put your mind on it. When you get on a street car in Germany, what tip do you give the conductor?

The Second Man

Five pfennigs.

The First Man.

Naturally. That’s the tip fixed by custom. You may almost say it’s the unwritten law. If you gave the conductor more, he would hand you change. Well, how I reason it out is this way: If five pfennigs is enough for a car conductor, who may carry you three miles, why shouldn’t it be enough for the elevator boy, who may carry you only three stories?