To Tip or Not to Tip.
On Board Train, 19—.
Dear Billy:—
Writing on train is not the best of a task, but when I feel like writing I must write or you would get no letters. I have just been in to dinner in the dining-car, and there I met a tan colored coon who used to wait on us up to the Poker Club on Clark Street. That coon ought to be rich with the tips he has pinched out of us; most likely he would be if he had not played so much policy.
You ought to have seen him swell up when he saw me; he acted as though he was carrying the secret of my birth, or something else equally as interesting. He started to shake hands with me, but when he saw that three-karat uneasy payment diamond I am wearing in my shirt front, he backed up and got away. He came back as soon as he could get his breath and I had the best there was in the car and a very large portion of it. Of course, he expected a half for what he stole from the company, and of course he got it, but it made me feel as though I had laid myself liable to arrest as an accessory before the fact in a larceny case.
Running across this nigger and noticing how easy he pried a half out of me, made me hark back to other things that have happened and then I got doubtful as to my former decision as to tipping being the right thing to do. After all it is not so much a question of right and wrong as it is a case of can a fellow afford not to do it?
I remember going into a Broadway hotel in New York once and deciding beforehand that I would do no tipping. The first time I went into the dining-room the head coon bowed me in very graciously, as he had never seen me before, and I most likely looked easy; he gave me in charge of a dull-looking waiter and let it go at that. The waiter was bum, to put it mildly, and as I made up my mind that I did not owe him anything, he did not get anything.
The next time I went into that dining-room I was given a different table and a different waiter. This waiter was a little better than the other one and seemed to try hard to do everything to please me, but I had steeled my heart against all waiters and I was not in a mind to show the white feather or the soft heart, whichever it might be called.
The next time I came into the dining-room I received very slight notice from the “King of the Cannibal Islands,” as I had designated the big moke at the door, and I was turned over to the tender mercy of a six-foot coon who had a hand like a ham and teeth that reminded me of a mile of painted fence palings. This black slugger did not waste any time on me. He demanded my order as though he meant my watch and diamond pin, and when he came back with the stuff, he threw it at me as though he was pitching quoits at an iron pin. He only gave me a half portion of butter, and then kept out of my way so I could not get any more.
I called to another waiter, but the only satisfaction I got was:
“I am not waiting on you.”
When I asked him to call my waiter, I was passed by as though he had not heard me. I called the assistant head waiter, only to be told that the waiters were very busy, and were doing the best they could.
When I realized I was up against it good and plenty I rested on my oars, awhile, wondering how I would play even. While I was thinking it over and wondering if I would be obliged to acknowledge myself beaten, my waiter, thinking I was through, came to me and asked if I was done. At the same time another waiter came on the scene holding a huge tray high over his head. The tray was filled to the guards with everything from soup to pie. An idea struck me, but I had to be quick.
I dropped my fork, my waiter stooped to pick it up, and, as he was stooping, I kicked my chair from under me and, throwing myself on all fours in front of the fast approaching waiter with the tray, causing him to trip and bring the tray and its contents fair on top of my waiter’s back and head.
I escaped without a spatter, the incoming waiter got but little, but the poor devil of a nig that was supposed to wait on me got a good bit more than I expected, for he was not only drenched with the soup, gravy, chicken potpie, custard pie, and a few other edibles, but a broken piece of crockery or glass took him in the back of the head and cut a good-sized gash. Either this or his striking the floor with his head put him out of business, for he never moved a muscle. The head waiter and the assistant head waiter came rushing up, and there was a general stampede of guests to see what was the matter. I was the first to demand to know how it all happened.
The proprietor came in and gave orders for the removal of the debris, and, incidentally, of the waiter also. He was picked up and carried out, and so were the dishes.
After the nigger had been carried out, there was a good deal of talk about how it happened. They found the nig who had the tray and demanded of him what part he had in it. He was just about to open his mouth when I stepped in front of him, clenched my fist and looked him square in the eye.
“Fo’ de Lawd, I don’ know how it all did come about. I jes’ tripped on sumthin’ and dar I was.”
With this explanation Mr. Nig slid out of the way. The next time I came in the dining-room I was fitted out with an umbrella handle. It was one of the largest ones I ever saw and shaped not unlike a revolver handle. This I had in my hip pocket. I threw my coat tails to one side and exposed for a moment the top of the handle to the gaze of the head waiter. After I was sure he had seen it I walked up to him and said:
“Look here, Sam, you saw my gun, but you only saw one of the pair. They are forty-fours and will carry a bullet through a six-inch plank. Now, I don’t propose to be held up by you damned rascals any more. What I want of you is to put me to the same table each time, give me as good a waiter as you have in the house, and see that I am waited on in first-class shape. If you do this, all right; if not, there will be a pile of dead niggers here that will bring on international complications.”
“I don’ know what yo’ mean, sar.”
My hand went to my hip pocket, but before I had time to draw, the moke threw up his hands and cried out:
“Fo’ de Lawd, mister man, you can hab any waiter yo’ want.”
The head waiter seated me himself, and I was never waited on better in my life, and it was kept up as long as I stayed in the house. I expected to be interviewed about those concealed weapons, but was not, and the umbrella handle did service equally as well as a cannon.
The negro is strong on long words, and about three days after my calling down the head waiter, he stopped me as I was leaving the dining-room and said:
“Mister Henderson, what’s dis yer international complexions you told me about dat day?”
“Is it possible you don’t know, Sam? Don’t you attend church every Sunday?”
“I suah does, sar, but we hain’t got none of dose things about our church.”
“Oh, yes you have, only you don’t see all there is going on about the church. International complications, Sam, act the same on the heart as vermiform appendix does on the liver, and it is a serious thing when they both begin working at once.”
“Yes, sar,” said Sam, as he bowed me out, and there was a puzzled look on his face that proved to me that I had raised about twenty feet in his estimation. I was only there two days more, but I think he stood more in awe of me on account of the big words I tossed him as I passed him each day than of the two big guns he thought I had.
I was stopping in Detroit at one time and had been introduced by some would-be society sports to the smart set, and Detroit has a smart set, even if the people generally are bigotted. I suppose these society boys thought they would have some fun with me when they got me up against some of those society bathing costumes, but I did not balk at them. I had seen them before on people who did not lay claim to so much respectability.
Perhaps I should say why I claim that the people of Detroit are bigotted. I want to tell you, Billy, you can gamble that the people of any town are bigotted when they will not accept Standard time, but have Sun time for their business and claim that the railroad people are a half an hour out of the way. The so-called Christian people should rise above anything of this kind, for these two-time towns are the cause of more profanity than any other one thing that I know of. All the prayers of all the good people in Christendom will not keep the traveling men out of h— if they don’t get this fool idea out of their heads of having a time of their own in these jay towns, and it can only be a jay town that will keep that much behind the trains.
Standard time was inaugurated for the benefit of all the people in the United States, and these guys who are not willing to go with the push have no particular excuse for living.
I started to tell you about my adventure with the smart set in Detroit, or rather my adventure at one of their functions. That word functions, Billy, is answerable for a lot of bum doings that I know about, and that only covers a small territory. I had on my turkey tail suit, just like a waiter, and felt as though the waist bands of my trousers were coming up through that big hole in the front of my vest. I had on a little dinkey tie, made out of some white stuff that I did not dare to put my hands on for fear I would make a mark on it, and I had one of those choker standing collars like a priest, that keeps a fellow guessing whether he is coming back or going ahead. On the whole I was not feeling any too good with that suit and perhaps was not altogether answerable for what I said and did.
When a lady looked at me more than a second I thought something was the matter with my clothes, and I could feel my face getting as red as a pickled beet.
I was standing around looking as though I would sell myself for a song or less, when one of those waistless dresses started toward me. It had a woman in it and I got scared. I thought she was about to tell me my collar was unbuttoned or that my shirt front had wilted.
“Mr. Henderson,” said she, “will you please send for an ice for me?”
“Sure,” said I, quite relieved that it was no worse. I turned about and seeing a fellow that I thought waited on me that morning at the hotel, I said:
“Here, Jim, run along and get this lady an ice.”
Jim did not move, and thinking he was waiting for a tip in advance, I handed him a quarter, saying:
“Get a move on you now, don’t waste any more time.”
“I am a guest,” said he, but he spoke so low the lady did not hear, but she heard me tell him to get the ice, and I could see but one way out.
“You get that ice,” said I, “or I will break your d——d head. I did not know you were a guest and you have no business to look so much like a waiter,” and I not only made him get the ice, but I made him take the quarter.
I think they would do better up there if they used Standard time.
Yours, Jack.
“STOCKYARDS,” SAID HE, “USED TO BE A RIPPER.”
Merry Christmas.
Jack
Henderson.