Rushford waved his hand.
"I don't care what they expect. Besides, there's going to be one hotel in Europe where Americans get a square deal. If your compatriots don't want to patronise my house, they can go to that low-down lunatic asylum across the street. By the way, what's its name?"
"T'e Grand Hôtel Splendide," answered Pelletan, glowing with delight at his companion's power of invective.
"H—m," said the latter; "the worse a hotel is, the bigger name it seems to have. But about the discount. Let me repeat for you, Pelletan, a business axiom. To give a discount is to admit that your goods are not worth the price you ask for them, and that you're willing to cheat anybody who doesn't know enough to beat you down. All the business of Europe seems to be run in just that way, but ours won't be. Our goods are worth the price!"
"But," began Pelletan, humbly, "efen at Ostend—"
"This is not Ostend. This is Weet-sur-Mer—a place more home-like, more comfortable, preferable in every way, and with greater natural advantages than Ostend ever had or ever will have. Only a fool would go to Ostend when he could come to Weet-sur-Mer and stop at the Grand Hôtel Royal."
Pelletan rubbed his hands in delight.
"You really t'ink so, monsieur?" he murmured.
"No matter what I think. Besides, you can go back to your old schedule, if you want to, at the end of the month. But I'm fixing this new schedule to suit myself, and I don't want to be interrupted. These ordinary apartments will be thirty to forty francs, according to size. Single rooms will be ten francs. Breakfast will be four francs, dinner ten francs—in a word, we double our income without increasing our expenses. That's the secret of all high finance, my friend."
"But, monsieur," stammered Pelletan, more and more astounded, "eef t'ere iss no one to pay, what does it matter?"