easily drift into
the habit of leaving everything to him. There is a certain embarrassment
about applying to the average American hotel clerk, a certain hesitancy,
a sense of insecurity against rebuff; but you feel no embarrassment in
your intercourse with the portier; he receives your propositions with an
enthusiasm which cheers, and plunges into their accomplishment with an
alacrity which almost inebriates. The more requirements you can pile
upon him, the better he likes it. Of course the result is that you cease
from doing anything for yourself. He calls a hack when you want one;
puts you into it; tells the driver whither to take you; receives you
like a long-lost child when you return; sends you about your business,
does all the quarreling with the hackman himself, and pays him his money
out of his own pocket. He sends for your theater tickets, and pays for
them; he sends for any possible article you can require, be it a doctor,
an elephant, or a postage stamp; and when you leave, at last, you will
find a subordinate seated with the cab-driver who will put you in your
railway compartment, buy your tickets, have your baggage weighed, bring
you the printed tags, and tell you everything is in your bill and paid
for. At home you get such elaborate, excellent, and willing service as
this only in the best hotels of our large cities; but in Europe you get
it in the mere back country-towns just as well.

What is the secret of the portier's devotion? It is very simple: he gets
FEES, AND NO SALARY. His fee is pretty closely regulated, too. If you
stay a week, you give him five marks--a dollar and a quarter, or about
eighteen cents a day. If you stay a month, you reduce this average
somewhat. If you stay two or three months or longer, you cut it down
half, or even more than half. If you stay only one day, you give the
portier a mark.

The head waiter's fee is a shade less than the portier's; the Boots, who
not only blacks your boots and brushes your clothes, but is usually the
porter and handles your baggage, gets a somewhat smaller fee than the
head waiter; the chambermaid's fee ranks below that of the Boots. You
fee only these four, and no one else. A German gentleman told me that
when he remained a week in a hotel, he gave the portier five marks, the
head waiter four, the Boots three, and the chambermaid two; and if he
stayed three months he divided ninety marks among them, in about the
above proportions. Ninety marks mak