Receives you like a long-lost child when you return;
sends you about your business, does all the quarreling
with the hackman himself, and pays him his money out
of his own pocket. He sends for your theater tickets,
and pays for them; he sends for any possible article
you can require, be it a doctor, an elephant, or a
postage stamp; and when you leave, at last, you will
find a subordinate seated with the cab-driver who will
put you in your railway compartment, buy your tickets,
have your baggage weighed, bring you the printed tags,
and tell you everything is in your bill and paid for.
At home you get such elaborate, excellent, and willing
service as this only in the best hotels of our large cities;
but in Europe you get it in the mere back country-towns just
as well.
What is the secret of the portier's devotion? It is
very simple: he gets FEES, AND NO SALARY. His fee
is pretty closely regulated, too. If you stay a week,
you give him five marks - a dollar and a quarter, or about
eighteen cents a day. If you stay a month, you reduce
this average somewhat. If you stay two or three months
or longer, you cut it down half, or even more than half.
If you stay only one day, you give the portier a mark.
The head waiter's fee is a shade less than the portier's;
the Boots, who not only blacks your boots and brushes
your clothes, but is usually the porter and handles your
baggage, gets a somewhat smaller fee than the head waiter;
the chambermaid's fee ranks below that of the Boots.
You fee only these four, and no one else. A German
gentleman told me that when he remained a week in a hotel,
he gave the portier five marks, the head waiter four,
the Boots three, and the chambermaid two; and if he
stayed three months he divided ninety marks among them,
in about the above proportions. Ninety marks make
$22.50.
None of these fees are ever paid until you leave the hotel,
though it be a year - except one of these four servants
should go away in the mean time; in that case he will
be sure to come and bid you good-by and give you the
opportunity to pay him what is fairly coming to him.
It is considered very bad policy to fee a servant while you
are still to remain longer in the hotel, because if you
gave him too little he might neglect you afterward,
and if you gave him too much he might neglect somebody
else to attend to you. It is considered best to keep his
expectations "on a string" until your stay is concluded.
I do not know whether hotel servants in New York get any
wages or not, but I do know that in some of the hotels there
the feeing system in vogue is a heavy burden.
