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Le Premier Chambellan, V'te de Laferriere. Monsieur Ch. Moulton. My father-in-law thought it cost too much my toilettes, the necessary outlay, and especially the pourboires. He was right from his point of view, for he had none of the jeu and all of the chandelle. I pined and pouted the whole day, and considered myself the most down-trodden mortal in existence.
Their chairs had already been moved away, and the leeward corner, which had seemed so much their own, was filled up by a small group of sailors who were quarrelling about the division of pourboires. The drive to Miraflores is long and winding, past several small villages, and approached finally through a large tract of fields and orchards.
A bored young waiter, with little to hope for in the way of pourboires, ambled off in quest of our food. I began to unfasten my head covering, and after a search for various fugitive pins I emerged from obscurity, like the moon from behind a cloud.
I rather liked the old way better, as one felt that in a measure one had made some little compensation for all the delightful days spent there. I asked my maid how the servants felt about this change. She said that in their salle a manger almost all the maids and valets belonging to the guests gave pourboires.
"I seem to be driving sovereigns. What pourboires I'll get!" "And all the places paid for!" said Mistigris, slyly. "It is a lucky day for me," continued Pierrotin; "for you know, Pere Leger, about my beautiful new coach on which I have paid an advance of two thousand francs?
And he added: "Tell your father-in-law that the question of pourboires has been settled now and forever. No more pourboires to be given nor taken at Compiegne." Then Mr. M gave his consent, and I was blissfully happy. It seems that the Emperor's attention had been railed to the many very disagreeable articles in the newspapers on the subject of the extravagant pourboires exacted at Compiegne.
My pourboires amounted sometimes to five or ten francs; I had my board and lodging free; and at the end of three months I had been able to provide myself with some decent clothing, and was commencing to accumulate a little reserve, when the lodging-house keeper, whose business had unexpectedly developed itself to a considerable extent, concluded to engage a man-waiter, and urged me to look elsewhere for work.
We were a rather subdued party in the train; the conversation mostly turned on the subject of pourboires. The huissier decides the exact amount that each ought to give. For instance, he knows an ambassador ought to give two thousand francs. For a minister of state one thousand francs suffices. Unofficial people like ourselves cannot be expected to be out of pocket more than six hundred francs.
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