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.  The waiter expects a quarter at breakfast—­and gets it.  You have a different waiter at luncheon, and so he gets a quarter.  Your waiter at dinner is another stranger—­consequently he gets a quarter.  The boy who carries your satchel to your room and lights your gas fumbles around and hangs around significantly, and you fee him to get rid of him.  Now you may ring for ice-water; and ten minutes later for a lemonade; and ten minutes afterward, for a cigar; and by and by for a newspaper—­and what is the result?  Why, a new boy has appeared every time and fooled and fumbled around until you have paid him something.  Suppose you boldly put your foot down, and say it is the hotel’s business to pay its servants?  You will have to ring your bell ten or fifteen times before you get a servant there; and when he goes off to fill your order you will grow old and infirm before you see him again.  You may struggle nobly for twenty-four hours, maybe, if you are an adamantine sort of person, but in the mean time you will have been so wretchedly served, and so insolently, that you will haul down your colors, and go to impoverishing yourself with fees.

It seems to me that it would be a happy idea to import the European feeing system into America.  I believe it would result in getting even the bells of the Philadelphia hotels answered, and cheerful service rendered.