Jonathan and His Continent Part 37

"h.e.l.lo! you are off too?" said a young man to a friend who had just installed his wife in the train for Jacksonville.

"My dear fellow, I have been here a fortnight; the Ponce de Leon is magnificent, but the bill is ruinous."

"Never mind, old man; take it off your wife's next dress-money."

Everything is on a grand scale in American hotels, especially the bills.

With few exceptions, the waiters in all the great hotels are negroes.

You are served with intelligence and politeness. No "d.u.c.h.esses" in the great cities of the north, or the fashionable resorts of the south.

Those good negroes have such cheerful, open faces! They seem so glad to be alive, and they look so good-natured, that it does one good to see them. When they look at one another, they laugh. When you look at them, they laugh. If a negro sees another negro blacker than himself, he is delighted; he calls him "darky," and looks on him in a patronising way.

Their great dark eyes that show the whites so, when they roll them in their own droll fashion; the two rows of white teeth, constantly on view, framed in thick _retrousse_ lips; the swaying manner of walking, with turned-out toes and head thrown back; the musical voice, sweet but sonorous, and so pleasing compared to the horrible tw.a.n.g of the lower-cla.s.s people of the north,--all make up a picturesque whole: you forget the colour, and fall to admiring them.

And how amusing they are!

At the Everett Hotel, Jacksonville, I one day went to the wrong table.

"You've come to de wrong table, sah," said the attendant darky. Then, indicating the negro who served at the next table, he added, "Dat's de gentleman dat waits on you, sah."

I immediately recognised my "gentleman," and changed my seat. The fact is that all the negroes are alike at a glance. It requires as much perspicacity to tell one from another, as it does to distinguish one French gendarme from another French gendarme.

I never met with such memories as some of those darkies have.

As I have said, the hotels of Florida are besieged during the winter months. At dinner time, you may see from six hundred to a thousand people at table. The black head-waiter knows each of the guests. The second time they enter the dining-room, he conducts them to their places without making a mistake in one instance. If you stop but a day, you may return a month after, and not only will he recollect your face, but he will be able to tell you which little table you sat at, and which place at that table was yours.

At the door of the dining-room, a young negro of sixteen or eighteen takes your hat and puts it on a hat-rack. I have seen hundreds thus in his care at a time. You leave the dining-room, and, without a moment's hesitation, he singles out your hat and hands it to you. It is wonderful when one thinks of it. I give you the problem to solve. Several hundred men, most of whom you have not seen more than once or twice before, pa.s.s into a room, handing you their chimney-pots or wide-awakes to take care of. They come out of the room in no sort of order, and you have to give each the hat that belongs to him. I have tried hard and often, but never succeeded in finding out how it is done.

Another negro in the hall goes and gets your key when he sees you return from a walk. No need to tell him the number of your room--he knows it. He may have seen you but once before, but that is all-sufficient--he never errs.

And the negresses! good, merry-looking creatures, with buxom faces and forms, supple, light, graceful gait, and slender waists, aping the fashion, and having very pretty fashions of their own, coquetting and mincing as they walk out with their "tic'lars" (particulars). The enjoyment of life is written on their faces, and one ends by thinking some of them quite pretty. I have seen some splendid figures amongst them. You should see them on Sundays, dressed in scarlet or some other bright colour, with great hats jauntily turned up on one side, and fanning themselves with the ease and grace of Belgravian ladies.

Negresses are not employed as chambermaids in hotels. They go into service only as nurses, and of course children love them. Unhappily for you, it is the objectionable "d.u.c.h.esses" that you find again, upstairs this time. The evil is not so great as it is in the smaller towns, where these young persons wait at table also. In the best hotels, their only duty is to keep the bedrooms tidy. You must not ask any service of them beyond that. If you desire anything brought to your bedroom, you ring, and a negro comes to answer the bell and receive your order.

I remember having one day insulted one of these women--certainly unintentionally, but the crime was none the less abominable for that.

This was it.

I was dressing to go out to dinner, and wanted some hot water to shave with. Having rung three times and received no answer, I grew impatient and opened the door, in the hope of seeing some servant who would be obliging enough to fetch me the water in question. A chambermaid was pa.s.sing my door.

"Could you, please, get me some hot water?" I said.

"What do you say?" was the reply, accompanied by a frown of contempt.

"Would you be so good as to get me some hot water?" I timidly repeated.

"Who do you think I am? Haven't you a bell in your room?" replied the harpy.

And she pa.s.sed along, indignant.

I withdrew into my room in fear and trembling, and for a few minutes was half afraid of receiving a request to quit the hotel immediately.

I shaved with cold water that day.

CHAPTER XL.

_The Value of the Dollar.--A Dressmaker's Bill.--What American Women must Spend on Dress.--Why so many Americans come to Europe every year.--Current Prices.--The Beggar and the Nickel.--Books and Oysters are Cheap.--Salaries.--"I can afford it."_

If you go to a changer, he will give you five francs in French money, or four shillings in English, for a dollar. But in America you are not long in discovering that you get for your dollar but the worth of a shilling in English money, or a franc in French.

The flat that lets for 4000 francs in Paris, and the house that is rented at 200 (4000 shillings) in London, would be charged 4000 dollars in New York, Boston, or Chicago.

The simplest kind of dress, one for which a Parisian of modest tastes pays 100 francs, would cost an American lady at least 100 dollars. A visiting dress costing, in Paris, 500 francs, in New York, would be 500 dollars. A hat that would be charged 50 francs is worth 50 dollars. The rest to match.

Here is a dressmaker's bill which fell under my eyes in New York. Divide each amount by five, and you have the sum in pounds sterling.

Robe de chambre 200 dollars Cloth dress 175 "

Opera Cloak 500 "

Riding habit 180 "

Bonnet 30 "

Theatre bonnet 50 "

Black silk dress 240 "

Ball dress 650 "

Added up, this makes 2025 dollars, in English money a total of 405. In this bill there is neither mantle, linen, shoes, gloves, lace, nor the thousand little requisites of a woman's toilette, and it is but one out of the three or four bills for the year.

I am convinced that an American woman who pretends to the least elegance must spend, if she be a good manager, from 1000 to 1500 a year. Add to this the fact that she loads herself with diamonds and precious stones.

But these, of course, have not to be renewed every three months.

A great number of Americans come to Europe to pa.s.s three months of every year. This is not an additional extravagance, it is an economy. They buy their dress for a year, and the money they save by this plan not only pays their travelling expenses, but leaves them a nice little surplus in cash.

A hotel bedroom on the fourth floor, for which you would pay five francs a-day in Paris, in New York is five dollars. A cab which costs you one franc and a half in France, or one shilling and sixpence in England, costs you a dollar and a half in New York.

The dollar has not more value than this in the lesser towns of the United States. The omnibus, for instance, which takes you to the station from your hotel for sixpence in England, or half a franc in France, costs you half a dollar in America.

Copper money exists in America; but if you were to offer a cent to a beggar, he would fling it at you--fortunately there are very few. When the barefooted urchins in the South beg, their formula is: "Spare us a nickel," or "Chuck us a nickel, guv'nor." The nickel is worth five cents, or twopence-halfpenny English money. The only use of the cent that I could discover was to buy the evening paper.

The only things cheap in the States are native oysters, and English or French books that have been translated (?) into American.