In Rome the
congestion is even greater. In Rome every other person is a guide
--and sometimes twins. I do not know why, in thinking of Europe,
I invariably associate the subject of guides with the subject of
tips. The guides were no greedier for tips than the cabmen or the
hotel helpers, or the railroad hands, or the populace at large.
Nevertheless this is true. In my mind I am sure guides and tips
will always be coupled, as surely as any of those standard team-word
combinations of our language that are familiar to all; as firmly
paired off as, for example, Castor and Pollux, or Damon and Pythias,
or Fair and Warmer, or Hay and Feed. When I think of one I know
I shall think of the other. Also I shall think of languages; but
for that there is a reason.
Tipping--the giving of tips and the occasional avoidance of giving
them--takes up a good deal of the tourist's time in Europe. At
first reading the arrangement devised by the guidebooks, of setting
aside ten per cent of one's bill for tipping purposes, seems a
better plan and a less costly one than the indiscriminate American
system of tipping for each small service at the time of its
performance. The trouble is that this arrangement does not work
out so well in actual practice as it sounds in theory. On the day
of your departure you send for your hotel bill. You do not go to
the desk and settle up there after the American fashion.
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