The courier came presently and reported the price.  I said to myself, “It is a hundred francs too much,” and so dismissed the matter from my mind.  But in the afternoon I was passing that place with Harris, and the picture attracted me again.  We stepped in, to see how much higher broken German would raise the price.  The shopwoman named a figure just a hundred francs lower than the courier had named.  This was a pleasant surprise.  I said I would take it.  After I had given directions as to where it was to be shipped, the shopwoman said, appealingly: 

“If you please, do not let your courier know you bought it.”

This was an unexpected remark.  I said: 

“What makes you think I have a courier?”

“Ah, that is very simple; he told me himself.”

“He was very thoughtful.  But tell me—­why did you charge him more than you are charging me?”

“That is very simple, also:  I do not have to pay you a percentage.”

“Oh, I begin to see.  You would have had to pay the courier a percentage.”

“Undoubtedly.  The courier always has his percentage.  In this case it would have been a hundred francs.”

“Then the tradesman does not pay a part of it —­the purchaser pays all of it?”

“There are occasions when the tradesman and the courier agree upon a price which is twice or thrice the value of the article, then the two divide, and both get a percentage.”

“I see.  But it seems to me that the purchaser does all the paying, even then.”

“Oh, to be sure!  It goes without saying.”

“But I have bought this picture myself; therefore why shouldn’t the courier know it?”

The woman exclaimed, in distress: 

“Ah, indeed it would take all my little profit!  He would come and demand his hundred francs, and I should have to pay.”

“He has not done the buying.  You could refuse.”

“I could not dare to refuse.  He would never bring travelers here again.  More than that, he would denounce me to the other couriers, they would divert custom from me, and my business would be injured.”

I went away in a thoughtful frame of mind.  I began to see why a courier could afford to work for fifty-five dollars a month and his fares.  A month or two later I was able to understand why a courier did not have to pay any board and lodging, and why my hotel bills were always larger when I had him with me than when I left him behind, somewhere, for a few days.

Another thing was also explained, now, apparently.  In one town I had taken the courier to the bank to do the translating when I drew some money.  I had sat in the reading-room till the transaction was finished.  Then a clerk had brought the money to me in person, and had been exceedingly polite, even going so far as to precede me to the door and holding it open for me and bow me out as if I had been a distinguished personage.  It was a new experience.  Exchange had been in my favor ever since I had been in Europe, but just that one time.  I got simply the face of my draft, and no extra francs, whereas I had expected to get quite a number of them.  This was the first time I had ever used the courier at the bank.  I had suspected something then, and as long as he remained with me afterward I managed bank matters by myself.