tip" the porters (give money), I asked the conductor what the men
were paid. "Little or nothing," was the reply; "they get from
seventy-five to one hundred dollars a month out of the _passengers_ on a
long run." "But the passengers paid the road for the service?" "Yes, and
they pay the salary of the porter also," said the man. With that in view
the men are poorly paid, and the railroad knows that the people will
make up their salaries, as they do. If you refused you would have no
service.

This rule holds everywhere, in hotels and restaurants. Servants receive
little pay where the patronage is rich, with the understanding that they
will make it up out of the customers. Thus if you go to a hotel you fee
the bell-boy for bringing you a glass of water. If you order one of the
seductive cocktails you fee the man who brings it; you fee the
chambermaid who attends to your room. Infinite are the resources of
these servants who do not receive a fee. You fee the elevator or lift
boy, or he will take the opportunity to jerk you up as though shot out
of a gun. You fee the porter for taking up your trunk, and give a
special fee for unstrapping it. You fee the head waiter, and when you
fee the table waiter he whispers in your ear that a slight fee will be
acceptable to the cook, who will see that the _Count_ or the _Judge_
will be cared for as becomes his station. When you leave, the sidewalk
porter expects a fee; if he does not receive it the door of the carriage
may possibly be slammed on the tail of your coat. Then you pay the
cabman two dollars to carry you to the station, and fee him. Arriving at
the station, he hands you over to a red-hatted porter, who carries your
baggage for a fee. He puts you in charge of the railroad porter, who is
feed at the rate of about fifty cents per diem.

The American submits to this robbery without a murmur; yet he is
sagacious, prudent. I can only explain his gullibility on the ground of
his innate snobbery; he thinks it is the "thing to do," and does it, and
for this reason it is carried to the most merciless lengths. To
illustrate. In the season of 1902, when I was at Newport, Mr. ----, a
conspicuous member of the New York smart set, known as the "Four
Hundred," lost his hat in some way and rode to his home without one.
The ubiquitous reporter saw him, and photographed him, bareheaded, and
his paper, the New York ----, gave a column the following day to a
description of the new fad of going w