It Will Hold From Four To
Eight Persons, And Will Take Up At Least Six Without Reluctance.
It must be clearly understood that the ideal of American comfort is
fully and faithfully realized, and if the English have reformed the
Italian hotels in respect of cleanliness, it is we who have brought them
quite to our domestic level in regard to heat and light.
But if we want
these things in Rome, we must pay for them as we do at home, though
still we do not pay so much as we pay at home. The tips are about half
our average, but whether they are given currently or ultimately I do not
know. Who, indeed, knows about others' tips anywhere in the world? I
asked an experienced fellow-citizen what the custom was, and he said
that he believed the English gave in going away, but he thought the
spirits of the helpers drooped under the strain of hope deferred, and he
preferred to give every week. The donations, I understood, were pooled
by the dining-room waiters and then equally divided; but gifts bestowed
above stairs were for the sole behoof of him or her who took them.
Germans are said to give less than Anglo-Saxons, and it is said that
Italians in some cases do not give at all. But, again, who knows? The
Italians are said never to give drink money to the cabmen, but to pay
only the letter of the tariff. If I had done that in driving about to
look up worse hotels than the one I chose first and last, I should now
be a richer man, but I doubt if a happier.
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