Part 34 (2/2)
”Here, you nigger!” X shouted at the first response ”How ot to tell all of you to put the head of ine?”
Whittlesey Warren looked at the bed He knew the make-up of the train
The code had been met The banker's pilloere toward the locoue and dispute He merely said:
”Yas-suh Scuse y and went back to the sinto Dunkirk, the banker returned and glanced through the carHe could see by the snow against the street la in the opposite direction His chubby finger went against the push button Whittlesey Warren appeared at the door The language that followed cannot be reproduced in THE SAturdAY EVENING POST Suffice it to say that the porter remembered who he was and what he was, and merely rear and retired once again to the club car When he returned, the train was backing into the Buffalo station At that unfortunate moain reversed the bed, to the accompaniment of the most violent abuse that had ever been heaped on his defenseless head
Yet not once did he complain--he reme X must have remembered; for a folded bill went into Warren's palh to buy that fancy vest which hung in a haberdasher's shop over on San Juan Hill
If you have been asking yourself all this while just what a fat run is, here is your answer: Tips; a fine train filled with fine ladies and fine gentlemen, not all of theh a good enerously for the privilege of indulging those peculiarities
Despite the rigid discipline of the Pullman Company the porter's leeway is a very considerable one His instructions are never to say ”Against the rules!” but rather ”I do not knohat can be done about it”--and then to make a quick reference to the Pullman conductor, who is his arbiter and his court of last resort His own initiative, however, is not small
Tspaper one over to Boston for a week-end, had separated momentarily at its end, to meet at the last of the afternoon trains for Gotham A had the joint finances and tickets for the trip; but B, hurrying through the traffic tangle of South Station, just ninety seconds before the moment of departure, knew that he would find hi Pullman observation car He was not asked to show his ticket at the train gate Boston, with the fine spirit of the Tea Party still flowing in its blue veins, has always resented that as a sort of railroad impertinence
B did not find A He did not really search for him until Back Bay was passed and the train was on the first leg of its journey, with the next stop at Providence Then it was that A was not to be found Then B realized that his side partner had missed the train He dropped into a corner and searched his own pockets A battered quarter and three pennies came to view--and the fare from Boston to Providence is ninety cents!
Then it was that the initiative of a well-trained Pullman porter came into play He had stood over the distressed B while he wasan inventory of his resources
”Done los' so, boss?” said the autocrat of the car
B told the black htforward manner; and the black lance Perhaps he saw in that honest ebony face so of the expression of the faithful servants of wartime who refused to leave their masters even after utter ruin had come upon theuess dat, ef you-all'll give meh yo' business cyard, Ah'll be able to fee-nance yo' trip dis ti intuition He had studied hishis countless opportunities to study ht suppose
A pretty well-known editor was saved fro time; and so situations through the intuition and the resources of the Pullman porter The conductor--both of the train and of the sleeping-car service--is not permitted to exercise such initiative or intuition; but the porter can do and frequently does things of this very sort His recompense for them, however, is hardly to be classed as a tip
The tip is the nub of the whole situation Alan to blaze the trail of luxury over the railroads of the land, and the autocrat of the Pull, it has been a reat Federal coht of publicity on it
Robert T Lincoln, son of the Emancipator, and, as we have already said, the head and front of the Pullton and answered some pretty pointed questions as to the division of the porter's incoer who ees, it appeared, are twenty-seven dollars and a half a month for the first fifteen years of the porter's service, increasing thereafter to thirty dollars a ood records
The porter also receives his unifor service his pay may reach forty-two dollars a month The rest of his income is in the for the past year the total of these tips, to the best knowledge and belief of his company, had exceeded two million three hundred thousand dollars
The Pullh it has made distinct advances in the establishment of pension funds and death benefits, it is hardly to be classed as a philanthropy It is a large organization; and it generally is what it chooses to consider itself
Sometimes it avers that it is a transportation coard itself as a hotel organization; but at all times it is a business proposition It is not in business for its health Its dividend record is proof of that All of which is a preface to the statee user of labor, regulates its wage scale by supply and deh of the colored brethren co and anxious to man its cars at twenty-seven dollars and a half a amble of two or three or four times that amount to come in the form of tips--it is hardly apt to pay more
No wonder, then, the tip forms the nub of the situation To-day all America tips You tip the chauffeur in the taxi, the redcap in the station, the barber, the bootblack, the irl who holds your coat for you in the barber's shop or hotel In the --waiters, doormen, hat boys, cha
The system may be abominable, but it has certainly fastened itself on us--sternly and securely And it may be said for the Pullle servitor--the black autocrat who senially no matter how suspiciously he may, at heart, view the quarter you have placed within his palm
A quarter seeht he ive e!--less A quarter is not only average but fairly standard It is given a certain official status by the auditing officers of nize it as a chargeable item in the expense accounts of their men on the road