Anyhow, We Shall Know To-
Morrow By The Shops Being Open Or Shut.
We travelled from Oberau with a tourist agent, and he told us all
his troubles.
It seems that a tourist agent is an ordinary human
man, and has feelings just like we have. This had never occurred to
me before. I told him so.
"No," he replied, "it never does occur to you tourists. You treat
us as if we were mere Providence, or even the Government itself. If
all goes well, you say, what is the good of us, contemptuously; and
if things go wrong, you say, what is the good of us, indignantly. I
work sixteen hours a day to fix things comfortably for you, and you
cannot even look satisfied; while if a train is late, or a hotel
proprietor overcharges, you come and bully ME about it. If I see
after you, you mutter that I am officious; and if I leave you alone,
you grumble that I am neglectful. You swoop down in your hundreds
upon a tiny village like Ober-Ammergau without ever letting us know
even that you are coming, and then threaten to write to the Times
because there is not a suite of apartments and a hot dinner waiting
ready for each of you.
"You want the best lodgings in the place, and then, when at a
tremendous cost of trouble, they have been obtained for you, you
object to pay the price asked for them. You all try and palm
yourselves off for dukes and duchesses, travelling in disguise.
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