“Never! that will not do,” and I entered the carriage and told the driver to drive on. "Oh, gentlemens, I just thinks; stop—one gentleman go away zis night and you have ze three rooms as you want. Dat is all right.”
We entered and took possession, and the landlord was all politeness.
Our German friends had almost identically the same performance at the Hotel d’ Angleterre, and with the same result.
The rivalry of these two hotels was of a bitterness rarely seen in cities; it resembled the hostility of two country boys when both are sweet on the same girl. No servant of one establishment was allowed to enter the other, and when we sent messages requiring answers, the bearer was obliged to wait outside the front door, while the porter of that house took the missive up stairs and brought the response. The rival proprietors were not on speaking terms, and the guides and runners were constantly at war.
During the whole of our stay we played upon their jealousies to the best of our abilities. When we wanted to hire carriages for drives around the city or in its vicinity we put the business in competition and reduced the rates nearly one-half. We thus obtained carriages for twelve francs where twenty was the regular price, and for fifteen francs where they ordinarily demanded twenty-five. No matter what we wanted, we always said, “We will see what our friends at the other house can do.” That always brought them to terms.
It is not often that a traveller profits by the quarrels of innkeepers. These gentry are much more likely to resemble in their discords, the operations of the two sides of a pair of shears,—they cut not themselves but what’s between them.
