another.

The worst part of the tipping system is that very often the knowledge
that tips are expected and the uncertainty of their amount, causes one
to forego a great number of things that might otherwise be enjoyable.

I brought with me to Paris, for example, a letter of introduction to the
President of the Republic. I don't say this in any boasting spirit. A
university professor can always get all the letters of introduction that
he wants. Everyone knows that he is too simple to make any commercial
use of them. But I never presented this letter to the President. What
was the use? It wouldn't have been worth it. He would have expected a
tip, and of course in his case it would have had to be a liberal one,
twenty-five cents straight out. Perhaps, too, some of his ministers
would have strolled in, as soon as they saw a stranger, on the chance of
picking up something. Put it as three ministers at fifteen cents each,
that's forty-five cents or a total of seventy cents for ten minutes'
talk with the French Government. It's not worth it.

In all Paris, I only found one place where tipping is absolutely out of
the question. That was at the British Embassy. There they don't allow
it. Not only the clerks and the secretaries, but even the Ambassador
himself is forbidden to take so much as the smallest gratuity.

And they live up to it.

That is why I still feel proud of having made an exception to the rule.

I went there because the present ambassador is a personal friend of
mine. I hadn't known this till I went to Paris, and I may say in
fairness that we are friends no longer: as soon as I came away, our
friendship seemed to have ceased.

I will make no secret of the matter. I wanted permission to read in the
National Library in Paris. All Frenchmen are allowed to read there and,
in addition, all the personal friends of the foreign ambassadors. By a
convenient fiction, everybody is the friend of this ambassador, and is
given a letter to prove it, provided he will call at the Embassy and get
it. That is how I came to be a friend of the British Ambassador. Whether
our friendship will ripen into anything warmer and closer, it is not for
me to say.

But I went to the Embassy.

The young man that I dealt with was, I think, a secretary. He was--I
could see it at once--that perfect thing called an English gentleman. I
have seldom seen, outside of baseball circles, so considerate a manner.
He took my card, and from sheer co