"What is the price of a bedroom?"
"What is the charge for attendance?"
"How much for dinner?"
"How much for breakfast?"
"What time must a room be given up?"
The last interrogatory is necessary in consequence of the varying rules of the hotels. Most of them have their day, like the nautical one, begin at noon, and a person who remains till one or two P.M. must pay for an extra day of room and attendance. Some hotels begin their day at 11 A.M., and some as early as 10; it is a noticeable fact that in several of these latter instances important trains leave a couple of hours after the termination of the diurnal reckoning. The traveler who holds his room till it is time to go to the train finds to his astonishment that the last hour of his occupation has cost him the same as an entire day. But the hotel keepers have a living to make, and must keep an eye to the main chance.
Guides for the city or neighborhood can be had at all hotels, and are preferable to those picked up the street. Carriages and cabs can also be ordered at the hotel, but if the traveler can trust himself to make a bargain it is better to secure them outside, since the house not infrequently adds a commission for its services. Besides it is well to learn as much as possible of the people you are among, and there are no more sharply-defined characters in the world than the professional drivers of Irish, Scotch, or English cities.
CHAPTER IX.
THE SYSTEM OF FEES.
Allusion has been made in preceding paragraphs to the system of gratuities that prevails in Great Britain and on the Continent. It is the greatest of all the annoyances of European travel, not so much for the money it consumes as for the perplexities it makes, and the perpetual irritation of being asked at every step to give an indefinite sum for real or fancied services. It would be a good deal mitigated if the expectants would name the exact amount they are entitled to; a regular tariff for gratuities would be a vast relief to the traveling public, but this boon is emphatically refused. The amount is always left to the stranger, partly for the reason that custom has so ordained, and partly because an avenue is thus left open for an increased demand.
The waiter is much less likely than his friend the cab-man to tell you he is under-paid, but he vouchsafes that information far more frequently than is agreeable to the traveler. He rarely speaks when conveying this reproof, but his manner is unmistakable. Occasionally he puts the money back in your hand, and declines to accept it; his manner is as lofty as the summit of Mount Blanc, and quite as cold, and to judge by his appearance his most tender susceptibilities have been sorely wounded. The novice generally soothes him by an addition to the amount of the offer, but the experienced voyager does nothing of the kind. He drops the returned cash into his pocket and turns away; the movement brings the offended dignity to his senses, and for a moment he undergoes a mental struggle over the situation. Shall he preserve his haughty manner and refuse to pursue the subject, or shall he accept what he has just declined? These are the questions that flit through his brain, and he carefully balances the pros and cons. The usual result is in favor of the last-named course, and he pockets his fee in silence and thankfulness, not unaccompanied with a sullen air.