_eer_?"

"Five marks."

"You gave him too much. You ought to have given him about three marks,
or, say, two marks fifty. How much was your hotel bill?"

"Including everything?"

"No, just your bill for your room."

"I paid six marks a day."

"Well, that made forty-two marks for the week. Now the way to figure out
how much the port_eer_ ought to get is easy: a fellow I met in
Baden-Baden showed me how to do it. First, you multiply your hotel bill
by two, then you divide by twenty-seven, and then you knock off half a
mark. Twice forty-two is eighty-four! Twenty-seven into eighty-four goes
about three times, and a half from three leaves two and a half. See how
easy it is?"

"It _looks_ easy, anyhow. But you haven't got much time to do all that
figuring."

"Well, let the port_eer_ wait. The longer he has to wait the more he
appreciates you."

"But how about the others?"

"It's just as simple. Your chambermaid gets a quarter of a mark for
every day you have been in the hotel. But if you stay less than four
days she gets a whole mark anyhow. If there are two in the party she
gets half a mark a day, but no more than three marks in any one week."

"But suppose there are two chambermaids? In Dresden there was one on day
duty and one on night duty. I left at six o'clock in the evening, and so
they were both on the job."

"Don't worry. They'd have been on the job anyhow, no matter when you
left. But it's just as easy to figure out the tip for two as for one.
All you have to do is to add fifty per cent., and then divide it into
two halves, and give one to each girl. Or, better still, give it all to
one girl and tell her to give half to her pal. If there are three
chambermaids, as you sometimes find in the swell hotels, you add another
fifty per cent. and then divide by three. And so on."

"I see. But how about the hall porter and the floor waiter?"

"Just as easy. The hall porter gets whatever the chambermaid gets, plus
twenty-five per cent.--but no more than two marks in any one week. The
floor waiter gets thirty pfennigs a day straight, but if you stay only
one day he gets half a mark, and if you stay more than a week he gets
two marks flat a week after the first week. In some hotels the hall
porter don't shine shoes. If he don't he gets just as much as if he
does, but then the actual 'boots' has to be taken care of. He gets half
a mark every two days. Every time you put out an extra pair of shoes he
gets fifty