oats.

THE SECOND MAN

But I hear it's fourth-rate wine.

THE FIRST MAN

Well, you don't have to drink it.

THE SECOND MAN

That's so. But, as for me, I can't stand a Frenchman. I'd rather do
without the wine and travel with the Dutch. Paris is dead compared with
Berlin.

THE FIRST MAN

So it is. But those Germans are awful sharks. The way they charge in
Berlin is enough to make you sick.

THE SECOND MAN

Don't tell _me_. I have been there. No longer ago than last Tuesday--or
was it last Monday?--I went into one of those big restaurants on the
Unter den Linden and ordered a small steak, French fried potatoes, a
piece of pie and a cup of coffee--and what do you think those thieves
charged me for it? Three marks fifty. That's eighty-seven and a half
cents. Why, a man could have got the same meal at home for a dollar.
These Germans are running wild. American money has gone to their heads.
They think every American they get hold of is a millionaire.

THE FIRST MAN

The French are worse. I went into a hotel in Paris and paid ten francs a
day for a room for myself and wife, and when we left they charged me one
franc forty a day extra for sweeping it out and making the bed!

THE SECOND MAN

That's nothing. Here in Innsbruck they charge you half a krone a day
_taxes_.

THE FIRST MAN

What! You don't say!

THE SECOND MAN

Sure thing. And if you don't eat breakfast in the hotel they charge you
a krone for it anyhow.

THE FIRST MAN

Well, well, what next? But, after all, you can't blame them. We
Americans come over here and hand them our pocket-books, and we ought to
be glad if we get anything back at all. The way a man has to tip is
something fearful.

THE SECOND MAN

Isn't it, though! I stayed in Dresden a week, and when I left there were
six grafters lined up with their claws out. First came the port_eer_.
Then came----

THE FIRST MAN

How much did you give the port_eer_?

THE SECOND MAN

Five marks.

THE FIRST MAN

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?

THE SECOND MAN

Including everything?

THE FIRST MAN

No, just your bill for your room.

THE SECOND MAN

I paid six marks a day.

THE FIRST MAN

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