“Mr.” gives you the idea of not wishing to make a profit; but he gives you nothing else.  You wish to be “en pension”—­“Ver’ well, Sor, it is seventeen francs (or marks) the day;” but you soon discover that your room is extra, and that you may not dine “apart;” in a word, you are “Mr.’s” bondsman.  Then there is the persuasive lady, who perhaps, may be stopping a week or more, but her plans are undecided—­at any rate six days—­“Will ‘Mr.’ make a reduction?” “Mr.” however, continues his manuscript, oh ever so long! and smiles; his smile is worse than his bite!  I, the Habitue, approach “Mr.” with a furtive clandestine air, and observe cheerily, “I hope to remain here a month.”  “Certainly, Sor; is better you do; will be se same as last year; I gif you se same appartement, you see.”—­This with an air of favour.  I thank him profusely—­for nothing.  My bill turns out to be higher than if I had been overcharged separately for everything.  “Mr.” is the Master of the Arts of extras.  He does not wish to make a profit; oh no! but—­ahem—­he makes it.  As for the outsiders who straggle in casually for luncheon and want to be sharp with “Mr.” afterwards, they are soon settled.  One who won’t be done, complains of a prince’s ransom for a potato-salad.—­“If you haf pertatas, you pay for pertatas.”—­TALLEYRAND could not have been more unanswerable.

“Mr.” is immense at entertainments; it is “Mr.” who organises “Se Spanish Consairt,” “Se Duetto of se Poor Blinds,” and, of course, “Se Bal”; he is very proud of his latest acquisition—­the Orchestrion that plays the dinner down.  To see “Mr.” dispatch itinerant minstrels would do our County Council good.

“Mr.” knows our compatriots au fond; he makes no extra charge for toast at breakfast, and you only pay half-a-crown for a pot of George the Third Marmalade, to lubricate it withal.  Five-o’clock tea comes up at six, just as at home.  He makes much of Actors, Peers, and Clergymen.  Sunday is a great day for “Mr.”  He directs everyone to the English Church in “The Grounds”—­(fifteen benches and one tree, with a fountain between them); and then goes off to play cards, but always in his frock-coat.  The “Chaplain” gets his breakfast-egg gratis; and a stray Bishop writes, “Nothing can exceed the comfort of this Hotel,” in that Doomsday Book of Visitors.

When you depart—­and, abroad, this is generally about daybreak—­“Mr.” is always on the spot, haughty, as becomes a man about to be paid, but considerate; there is a bouquet in petticoats for the Entresol—­even, for me, a condescending word. “When you see Mr. SHONES in London, you tell him next year I make se Gulf-Links.” I don’t know who the dickens JONES may be, but I snigger.  It all springs from that miserable fiction of being an Habitue. “Sans adieux!” ejaculates “Mr.,” who is great at languages; so am I, but, somehow, find myself saying “Good-bye” quite naturally. A propos of languages, “Mr.” is