_Snapping and Tipping_
The poor man never knows the cares and responsibilities that beset the
man of wealth, and the man without a kodak does not know how keen is
the disappointment of a picture missed--be the cause what it may.
Heretofore I have traveled care free for two reasons: one was I never
had any money to speak of, and the other was I never carried a camera.
I looked at the superb view, or the picturesque street group, solely
for its passing interest, with never a thought of locking it up in a
black box for the future delectation of my friends, and to bore
transient visitors who, as I have noticed, always begin to look up
their time tables when the snapshot album is produced of a rainy
Sunday afternoon.
But this year some one with the glib tongue of a salesman persuaded me
of the delights that were consequent on the pressing of a button, and
I purchased a camera of the sort that makes its owner a marked man.
The first two or three days I was as conscious as a man who has just
shaved his mustache on a dare, and who expects his wife home from the
country any minute. I fancied that every one knew I was a novice,
although even I hadn't seen any of my pictures as yet.
I snapped a number of friends on the steamer, and even had the
audacity to make the captain look pleasant--but in his case it came
natural, and really, when it was printed, even strangers could hear
his hearty laugh whenever they looked at the picture, so true to life
was it.
Of course it was beginner's luck, but as I went on snapping and
getting the films developed I found that I had picked up a fine lens,
and the pictures I was taking were really worth while, and then--
Say, have you ever had hen fever? Has your pulse ever quickened at
sight of an egg you could call your own? Have you ever breathed hard,
when the old hen led forth thirteen fluffy chickens and you reflected
that thirteen chickens would reach the egg-laying stage in seven
months, and that if each of them hatched out thirteen you would have
one hundred and sixty-nine inside of a year--and then have you gone
out and bought twenty old hens, so as to have wholesale success--with
deplorable results? If you have done all these things you know what a
man does whose first snapshots are successful. I laid in supplies of
films till my pockets bulged and my purse looked lean.
And the first time the sun shone after landing at 'Derry, I went out
to see the Giant's Causeway--and left my camera behind me.
Then I experienced for the first time the sensation as of personal
loss, when the views that might have been mine were left where they
grew.
On my way back I came on a hardened old sinner of sixty odd years
teaching a little kiddie of four to smoke a cigarette. If I had had my
camera I could have batted the old man over the head with it. But it
was in the hotel.
When I show my views to visitors they will say, "And didn't you go to
the Giant's Causeway?" nor will they accept my reason for the lack of
a view. And I feel that the set is incomplete.
As time went on I noticed several things that are probably obvious to
every amateur. One was that on the days on which I remembered to take
my camera I saw very commonplace subjects and only snapped because I
had the habit. Another was that no matter how fine the weather was
when I set out with my camera, it was sure to cloud up, just as we
reached the castle or met the pretty peasant girl, who was only too
willing to be taken.
[Illustration: ON THE ROAD TO LISMORE,
IN A RAIN STORM]
One day I was walking from Cappoquin to Lismore, all unconscious of
what lay before me, and just for wantonness I took trees and pictures
that might have been in any country. At last I had but two films left,
and then the meeting of several droves of cattle coming from Lismore
told me that it must be Fair Day there. Just then lovely, noble,
glorious Lismore castle burst on my view and I had to take it.
And then I came on the fair and saw pictures at every turn.
Funny little donkeys with heads quite buried in burlap bags the while
they sought for oats, gay-petticoated and pretty-faced women in
groups, grizzled farmers that looked the part, waterbutts on wheels in
Rembrandtesque passageways, leading to sunlit courtyards
beyond--regular prize winners if one had any sort of luck.
And then a man with an ingratiating brogue asked me to take him and
his cart and almost before I knew it I had taken a sow that weighed
all of five hundred pounds, and my snapshooting was over for the day.
You may be sure that next day I went well prepared, but Fair Day is
only once a month, and fair days are not much more plentiful, and it
rained all day, and the only thing I saw worth taking was a sort of
Don Quixote windmill that had been run by a horse probably years
before the expression "the curse o' Crummel" (Cromwell) came to be
used, and I was in a swiftly moving train and there was a woman in the
way--oh! there's no doubt that camerading is fascinating, but it is
also vexatious.
Still, my advice to those about to travel is--take a camera. If it's a
very rainy Sunday you may want them to leave on an early train.
Tipping is a subject that is always worth discussing. A man does not
like to give less than the usual tip, and he ought not to give more,
because it makes it hard for the next man, who may not be able to
afford much of an expenditure.
Tipping in Ireland is a very mild thing compared to continental
tipping. I'll never forget my first experience in Amsterdam. I have
spent many agreeable and useful years since then, and the world has
been better for my presence, for eighty-four months at least, since
that day, but the comic opera features of that first wholesale tipping
stand out as if I heard the whole thing last night at some Broadway
theater.
There were two of us, and we had spent two delightful days in
Amsterdam, doing the picture galleries and confirming Baedeker as hard
as we could, and now we must give up the two huge rooms on the first
floor that we occupied at the Grand Hotel (to give it a name) and make
our way to other Dutch hostelries.
I said to Massenger, "How about tipping? Does it obtain in Holland?"
"Oh, yes," said Massenger, with a gleam in his eye. "It obtains all
right. You leave it to them."
"How much shall I leave to them?" said I, looking at the small coins I
had withdrawn from my pocket.
"Well, we have been royally treated, and there are a good many waiters
and chambermaids and 'portiers,' and a proprietor or two, and the
equivalent for boots, and the 'bus driver."
"But how are we to get them all?"
"Just pay your bill and you'll get them all right," said Massenger. (I
should explain that whoever travels with me is called Massenger. It
saves trouble.)
I did not quite understand, but I signified my intention of paying my
bill, and the proprietor or his steward was all bows and smiles, and
handed it to me, at the same time ringing a bell.
Then the chorus began to assemble. Lads and maidens in the persons of
waiters whom I had never seen, and chambermaids of whom I had never
heard, began to swarm into the office.
After they had ranged themselves picturesquely the boots began to
arrive. Some from neighboring hotels who had heard the bell came
running in, and grouped themselves behind the maids. Then a head
waiter who looked like a tenor came seriously in and I expected that
in a moment I would hear:
"'Tis the very first of May,
Though we've not a thing to say,
We will stand here, anyway
Stand awhile and sing."
I looked at Massenger and asked him what it all meant.
"It's in our honor," said he. "We've got to shell out."
And sure enough it was. We had to disgorge pro rata to all the
assembled ones, and Massenger said afterward that he thought one or
two of the guests came in for certain of our gratuities.
When we stepped into the 'bus, quite innocent of coins of any sort, I
listened, expecting to hear:
"Now, in spite of rainy day,
We have gone and made our hay.
And I don't care what you say,
When the Yankees come this way
We get what they bring."
They got it all right, but I was quite unnerved for some time. The
attack had been so sudden.
In Ireland there is nothing to equal this for system, and a copper
does make a man feel grateful--or at least it does make him express
gratitude. I have yet to hear curses in Ireland.
But when you visit private houses you don't know what to do. Tips are
expected there--not by everybody, but by maid and coachman, anyhow,
and you wonder what is the right thing to do.
To be sure you have caused trouble. You have placed your boots outside
your door, just as you have latterly learned to do at home, and it
was a maid who gave them that dull polish that wears out in a half
hour. Leave polish behind when you leave America--that seems, by the
way, to be the motto of a good many traveling Americans, but I
referred to the kind that you can see your face in when imparted by an
Italian.
[Illustration: MILK WAGON, MALLOW]
I had an experience when on my way to visit Lady ----, in County
Monaghan, in the central part of Ireland.
Just how much to tip a coachman of a "Lady" I did not know. A shilling
did not seem enough, and two shillings seemed a good deal, and the
fellow did not have the arrogance of an English coachman. He was
simple and kindly, and was willing to talk to me, although he never
ventured a word unless I spoke to him.
When I had alighted at Ballybully station a ragged man had seized my
valise, and on ascertaining my destination had carried it to a smart
jaunting car driven by a liveried driver. I offered him a copper, and
he looked at it and said, "Sure, you're too rich a man to be contint
with that."
So to contint meself I gave him sixpence, just what I had paid for
having my trunk carried one hundred and eighty miles, and climbed to
the car.
On the way to the estate of Lady Clancarty (to give her a name also) I
figured on what I'd better give. To give too much would be as bad as
to give too little. Still, if it cost a sixpence for my suit case to
go a hundred yards, a three-mile drive should be worth a half pound at
least.
At last, just as we were driving in at the lodge gates, I foresaw that
I must make haste--as it would never do to hand out my tip in the
presence of my hostess--so I reached over the "well" and handed two
shillings to the driver. He seemed surprised and pulled a bit hard on
the left line. There was a swerve, a loud snap, and the step of the
car was broken short off against the gate!
I was conscience-stricken, but said not a word for a minute. Then the
driver said, "I've been driving for twinty-three years and niver had
an accident before."
He had jumped out and thrown the step into the "well" between us.
I had visions of the sacking of the old family driver, and all because
I had not known how much of a gratuity to give him.
But when I offered to make up the damage he said, "Indeed an' I'll be
able to fix it myself." And fix it he did, so that no one was the
wiser.
But the pain of those few moments when I expected to be driven into
the presence of my hostess with the car a wreck will not soon fade.
As a matter of fact, it was a good half mile to the house after we
left the lodge, and when we arrived I jumped from the seat without
using the step, and no one ever knew the humiliation that had come to
the driver after twenty-three years.