You pay four dollars a-day for your board and bed; this does not include wine, and every little extra is an additional charge. Children and servants are rated at half-price, and a baby is charged a dollar a-day. This item in the family programme is something new in the bill of charges at an hotel in this country; for these small gentry, though they give a great deal of trouble to their lawful owners, are always entertained gratis at inns and on board steamboats.
The room in which dinner was served could have accommodated with ease treble the number of guests. A large party, chiefly Americans, sat down to table. The dishes are not served on the table; a bill of fare is laid by every plate, and you call for what you please.
This arrangement, which saves a deal of trouble, seemed very distasteful to a gentleman near us, to whom the sight of good cheer must have been almost as pleasant as eating it, for he muttered half aloud--"that he hated these new-fangled ways; that he liked to see what he was going to eat; that he did not choose to be put off with kickshaws; that he did not understand the French names for dishes. He was not French, and he thought that they might be written in plain English."
I was very much of the same opinion, and found myself nearly in the same predicament with the grumbler at my left hand; but I did not betray my ignorance by venturing a remark. This brought forcibly to my mind a story that had recently been told me by a dear primitive old lady, a daughter of one of the first Dutch settlers in the Upper Province, over which I had laughed very heartily at the time; and now it served as an illustration of my own case.
"You know, my dear," said old Mrs. C---, "that I went lately to New York to visit a nephew of mine, whom I had not seen from a boy. Well, he has grown a very great man since those days, and is now one of the wealthiest merchants in the city. I never had been inside such a grandly furnished house before. We know nothing of the great world in Canada, or how the rich people live in such a place as New York. Ours are all bread and butter doings when compared with their grand fixings. I saw and heard a great many things, such as I never dreamed of before, and which for the life of me I could not understand; but I never let on.
"One morning, at luncheon, my nephew says to me, 'Aunty C---, you have never tasted our New York cider; I will order up some on purpose to see how you like it.'
"The servant brought up several long-necked bottles on a real silver tray, and placed them on the table. 'Good Lord!' thinks I, 'these are queer looking cider bottles. P'raps it's champagne, and he wants to get up a laugh against me before all these strange people.' I had never seen or tasted champagne in all my life, though there's lots of it sold in Canada, and our head folks give champagne breakfasts, and champagne dinners; but I had heard how it acted, and how, when you drew the corks from the bottles, they went pop--pop. So I just listened a bit, and held my tongue; and the first bounce it gave, I cried out, 'Mr. R---, you may call that cider in New York, but we call it champagne in Canada!'
"'Do you get champagne in Canada, Aunty?' says he, stopping and looking me straight in the face.
"'Oh, don't we?' says I; 'and it's a great deal better than your New York cider.'
"He looked mortified, I tell you, and the company all laughed; and I drank off my glass of champagne as bold as you please, as if I had been used to it all my life. When you are away from home, and find yourself ignorant of a thing or two, never let others into the secret. Watch and wait, and you'll find it out by and by."