O, but this tipping business is what is breaking dad's heart. I think if the servants would arrange a syndicate to rob dad of two or three dol lars a day, by pocket picking, or sneak thieving, he would overlook it, and say that as long as it was one of the customs of the country we should have to submit to it, but when he has paid his bill, with everything charged extra, and the servants line up and look appealingly, or mad, as the case may be, dad is the hardest man to loosen that ever was, but if they seem to look the other way, and not, apparently, care whether they get a cent or not, dad would go and hunt them up, and divide his roll with them. Dad is not what you would call a “tight wad,” if you let him shed his money normally, when he feels the loosening coming on, but you try to work him by bowing and cringing, and his American spirit gets the better of him, and he looks upon the servant as pretty low down. I have told him that the tipping habit is just as bad in America as in France, but he says in America the servant acts as though he never had such a thought as getting a tip, and when you give him a quarter or other tip he looks puzzled, as though he did not just recall what he had done to merit such treatment, but finally puts the money in his pocket with an air as though he would accept it in trust, to be given to some deserving person at the first opportunity, and then he smiles, and gets away, and blows in the tip for something wet and strong.
I told dad if he would just ignore the servants, as though he did not understand that they expected a tip, that he would be all right, so when we got ready to move from the hotel to private rooms dad never gave any servant a tip. Well, I don't know what the servants did to our baggage, but they must have marked it with a smallpox sign, or something, for nobody would touch it for several hours, but finally a baggage man took it and started for our apartments, and got lost and didn't show up for two days, and when it was finally landed on the sidewalk nobody would carry it upstairs, and dad and I had to lug it up two flights, and I thought dad would have apoplexy.
We found a guide who could talk New Orleans English and he said it would cost three dollars to square it with the servants at the hotel, and have the boycott removed from our baggage, and dad paid it, and now he coughs up a tip every time he sees a servant look at him. He pays when he goes in a restaurant and when he comes out, and says he is cured of trying to reform the customs of anybody else's country.
We have engaged a guide to stay with us day and night. The guide took us out for a bat last night, and dad had the time of his life. Dad has drank a good deal of spiritous and malt liquors in his time, but I don't think he ever indulged much in champagne at three or four dollars a bottle at home. Maybe he has been saving himself up till he got over here, where champagne is cheap and it takes several quarts to make you see angels. The guide took us to one of these bullyvards, where there are tables out on the sidewalk, and you can eat and drink and look at the dukes and counts and dutchesses and things promenading up and down, flirting like sin, and we sat down to a table and ordered things to eat and drink, and dad looked like Uncle Sam, and felt his oats.
When he had drank a few thimblefuls of absinthe, and some champagne, and eat a plateful of frogs, he was just ripe for trouble. A woman and a man at an adjoining table had one of these white dogs that is sheared like a hedge fence, with spots of long hair left on in places, and dad coaxed the dog over to our table and began to feed him frogs' legs, and the woman began to talk French out loud, and look cross at dad, and the count that was with her came over to our table and looked at dad in a tone of voice that meant trouble, and said something sassy, and the guide said the man wanted to fight a duel because dad had contaminated the woman's dog, and dad got mad and offered to wipe out the whole place, and he got up with a champagne bottle and looked defiance at the count, and the waiters began to scatter, when the woman came up to dad and begged him not to hurt the count, and as she spoke broken English dad could understand her, and she looked so beautiful, and her eyes were filled with tears, and dad relented and said: “Don't cry, dear, I won't hurt the little runt.” She was so glad dad was not going to kill the count that she threw herself into his arms and thanked dear America for producing such a grand citizen, such a brave man as dad, who could forego the pleasure of killing a poor, weak man who had insulted him, particularly as dad's wild Indian ancestry made it hard for him to refrain from blood.