Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 136, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 June 1915 — SEEING LIFE with JOHN HENRY [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

SEEING LIFE with JOHN HENRY

by George V. Hobart

John Henry On Tipping

did you ever make up your mind not to do any more tipping? And have you noticed how Quickly you’re forced to take the makeup off? 1 In a Big Town nowadays tipping Is as necessary as a traffic cop. Only by the aid of one or both can you make any progress or get anywhere. ; And the battle cry in each case Is “Hands up!” i It’s so in this country today that before a thoughtful man cushion-caroms through the merry-go-round doors of a pwell hotel he has to leave his pocket--book on the sidewalk if he doesn’t want to lose it. On the other side, across the Big Pond, if a hotel employee does you a little favor and you slip him tuppence ha’penny or a pfennig he will smile back at you and be much obliged for five minutes. But in this country if you tip anybody with a couple of pennies the chances are you’ll wake up in the hearest hospital and find a kind-heart-ed but not very pictorial nurse leaning over you and whispering "Keep callum, now, keep cool and callum! The doctor says you will recover everything except your watch if he pan find a small piece of the medulla bblongata which was removed from the northeastern part of your bean when [the bell-boy soaked you with the icepitcher!” . It takes a brave man to save his imoney these days. Hep Hardy is one of those reckless itip-tossers.. He thinks that all silver money shonld have a smooth surface, (thereby making it easier to slip a ccln to a waiter. I He is what the laurajeans would call a pepper box of prodigality. j Hep hands out backsheesh like an Absent-minded farmer sowing grain. Hep’s trail through’ a Big Town looks as though the cashier of a five land ten cent store was walking to the bank and had a hole in the canvas bag. When Hep starts out to pound a public road with his rowdy-cart all the (waiters in every hash-foundry within (sound of his siren fall flat on their faces and yell, “Hallelujah! pay-day there again!” Peaches and I dined wjth Hep at e Saint Astorvilt Hotel night before last. Hep likes to dine there because the waiters are French and when he tries to say “Good evening!” In their native tongue he Insults them so bitterly he has to sprinkle the room with tip-money in order to square himself. I Hep loves to squeeze into a French case, grab a French menu card, and in a confidential tone give an order like thia to the French waiter: “Avec le beaucoup pomme de terre. Donnez moi de I’eau chaude; je vais me raser. Avec get a move on you!” In a French hour and a half the French waiter hurries back with a culinary melodrama wherein each •wallow is a thrill and every new

* course a climax, and Hep, believing it is all due to,his Knowledge of the French language, swells up with pride and begins to toss money into the air. Hep doesn’t know it, but while he’s ppilMne that Schenectady French all over the tablecloth the waiter is getting a stone bruise on his palate from holding back his Parisian laughter. Hep would wrinkle his map with anger if he heard me, but I’ve been present when he has blurted out some of his French idioms with the ossified accent, and it’s a scream, I notify you! On one memorable occasion he ordered lamb chops and a baked potato In French. The waiter bowed, said, “Oui, M’sieu!” and brought him a bowl of vegetable soup and the morning paper. That’s how good that lad’s French is •—poor nut As a matter of fact Hep knows exactly nine ordinary French words, including n’cest pas and avec plaisir.

but he has memorized the name of every street in Paris. So when Hep exhausts his nine ordinary words he begins to use up the streets. He rushes, regardless of speed limits, all over the city of Paris. Out to Vaugirard, over to the Batignolles, to Clichy, by rues and side streets to the eastern Boulevard Beaumarchais and St. Denis, then across lots to the western Boulevard des Italiens, then into the high and off through the Place de la Concorde, around corners on one wheel into the Champs Elysees and on and on with the muffler off—it’s immense. However, as I was saying some time ago, Peaches and I dined with Hep and he handed us a few lessons in the gentle pastime of tipping, he surely did. From the very moment we entered the aristocratic beanery he began the giving of alms. The attendant at the revolving doors imprisoned a nice old lady in cell No. 3 and kept her there, cut off from communication with the world, while he waited for Hep to dig in his jeans for the customary quarter. A hall-boy, paging a missing husband, stopped short as he saw our party approaching, arranged his face in imitation of a Spanish mackerel, saluted Hep and received ten cents for his trouble. Battling Bill, the house detective, loomed bulkily in our pathway and without warning suddenly stooped down to pick up a pin. Hep did a hoodah over the tame Cop’s feet and when they both came smilingly to the surface Battling Bill clutched a fifty cent piece in his Westphalia and the procession moved on. Then from some dark recess or niche in the wall something in brass buttons and with a whisk broom in its hand darted out like a pickerel and pointed the whisk broom at Hep. The latter pointed a quarter at the something in brass buttons, whereupon the brass buttons and the whisk broom and the quarter darted away again, thereby bringing to a conclusion the incident of the pickerel. As we approached the coat room the girl in charge was seen to close her eyes in prayer. She didn’t open them again until after Hep had explained to her that if she spent the money he gave her for a new hat she wouldn’t have to give it to the in-come-tax gatherers. Whereupon she was glad aud showed her gum chewing instruments. Then she glanced at the inside of my hat to see if it was expensive and sighed deeply as we passed on. At the door of the soup room we were met by Effendi Bey, the head waiter. Hep whispered something to Effendi but the Bey wasn’t listening. He was looking at Hep’s hand which he knew must contain money. It always did. Hep gave Effendi a flash at a Treasury note. With the swiftness of thought the money changed

hands, whereupon Effendi Bey began to hum, “In my harem —my dinky little harem!” and turned us over to Murad Pasha, one of his lieutenants. Murad Pasha led us to a table and stood there —counting the spoon* — until Hep could find another pocket containing money. Then Murad Pasha, clutching his •hare of the plunder, with many bows and obeisances, faded out of- our lives and Giovanni Handsandfetsi, the omnibus, began to splash water into our glasses. Hep got rid of Giovanni by staking him. to enough money to enable his little brother Angelo to get through college, and thereafter for a period' of ten or fifteen minutes Hep was permitted to breathe quietly through his nose, and his pocketbook enjoyed a much needed rest Soon, however, another coughing fit came on and his struggles for breath were pitiful.

One of Effendi Bey’s lieutenants, made up to look like Ivan the Terrible, rode up to our table to inquire if a waiter had taken our order. Hep told him no, but Ivan couldn’t believe it. Ivan was firm in his disbelief until Hep gave him money, then he saw the light and went joyously away from there. Presently a waiter arrived who in some other incarnation, must have been a pirate on the Spanish Main. ' He had a chin which was divided against itself, and a forehead which was retreating hurriedly on the fourth speed. ' One look at Captain Kidd and I knew that Hep’s desire to die poor but popular would be realized. All the time th.e Captain was taking our order he was sizing us up and hoping in Portuguese that Hep’s eyesight wasn’t good so he could shortchange him. Finally the deadly Rover of the Seas decided to give us our food first and make us walk the plank afterwards. Then he bore away, sou’ by sou’east, for the kitchen where he dropped anchor and sharpened his boarding irons. In the meantime, while we awaited the return of the Pirate King, our friend Hep was busy tipping. Every time he took a cigarette from his case four eager waiters would dash forward with lighted matches

and Hep, desiring to show no partiality, would slip a coin to each of the Mexican guerrillas. One shark of a waiter swam around in the offing and every time Hep’s serviette dropped from his knees to the floor the shark would retrieve it and as he came, to the surface with the serviette in his teeth Hep would pat his head and reward him cheerfully. It was one continuous orgie of tipping until finally we left tire Prunes Palace with Captain Kidd gloating over the pieces of eight which Hep had given him and singing to himself, “Oh, ho—a bottle of rum on a dead man’s chest!" Hep insisted upon taking us home in a taxi so that he could tip the starter and the chauffeur. We stopped in the drug store at our home corner to mail some letters and even there Hep found a weighing machine and tipped the scales. There are ginks like Hep in every Big Town, going through the night like a cyclone through the sub-treas-ury, scattering pocket money right and left like so much chaff simply because they want to be 'looked upon as High Class Sports. And it’s hard to follow their act. It’s rough sledding for the Sensible Lads who are willing to pay for services rendered but balk at the myriad of outstretched paws which line the Pathways of Enjoyment. I was talking to Miff Patterson about it. Miff invented a machine for removing sunburn from pickles and made a fortune. He has it yet, all except two cents he paid for a postage stamp which stuck to his pocketbook some nine years ago. But he has the pocketbook and he still can look at the stamp and consider it an asset Miff is such a stingy loosener he looks at you with one eye so as not to waste the other. The boys call, him "Putty” because he’s the next thing to a pain. If you ask him what time it is he takes off four minutes as his commission for telling you. “Tipping!” said Miff; “what do you mean tipping?’’ “To give a bit of coin to a waiter or those who do you a service," I explained. “Oh!” said Miff; “I’ve heard about it, but I don’t do it I don’t know any waiter well enough to give him money to take home to his wife. She might meet me afterwards and thank me for it and my wife might hear about it —that’s risky work.” “But you can’t get good service in the restaurants or hotels unless you do a bit of tipping. How do you, manage it?” I inquired. "Easy,” Miff answered; “I never go to the same hotel twice. ,1 begin at the head of the list and go to them all. By the time I get around to the first one again all the old waiters have grown rich and have gone back to Bulgaria, so I’m safe —that’s my system.” Maybe Hep is right, and maybe Miff is right. For my part I believe in moderation, betwixt and bechune. What do you think? It is easier to criticize the best thing superbly than to do the smallest thing indifferent!*

Hep Would Pat His Head and Reward Him Cheerfully.

When the Bell-Boy Soaked You Over the Bean With an Ice Pitcher.