The Diners Out Handbook by Alfred Miles

Author:Alfred Miles
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: The Diners out Handbook: Etiquette in the Jazz Age
ISBN: 9781908402356
Publisher: Osprey Publishing

THE TYRANNY OF THE TIP.

F. RAYMOND COULSON

(From “A Jester’s Jingles,” by permission)

WHEN first upon this earth I came,

And went to church to get my name,

A noisy little rip,

The dame who put us in the pew

Received (I’m told they always do

At christenings) a tip.

When budding sense its leaves uncurled

I blossomed out into the world,

A slender little slip,

At quite an early age I found

The thing that makes the world go round

Is everywhere a tip.

The gentleman who brought the coal;

His friend who shot it down the hole;

The boy I’d like to whip,—

The butcher’s boy who came each day;

The duke who took the dust away;

They all required a tip.

Yea, these and many hundreds more

(To name them all would be a bore,

And so the list I skip),

Vast hordes were ranged on every hand

To whom the custom of the land

It was to give a tip.

And when I grew to man’s estate—

’Twas hopeless to elude my fate—

I fell within their grip,

And I became, as you have done,

Like every other mother’s son,

A victim of the tip.

The barber’s “help” who cuts my chin,

The man who brings my dinner in,

The steward on the ship,

The “boots,” and six or seven swells

Of servants found at all hotels,

They all expect a tip.

The porter—that confounded skunk

Who drops my bag, who tents my trunk—

He has me on the hip,

One puts my luggage in the train,

Another takes it out again—

They both exact a tip.

’Tis thus at every step in life,

Yea, even when I took a wife

I felt their cruel nip;

The parson and the parson’s clerk

(The latter grabbed it like a shark)

Received the usual tip.

And so where’er my steps I wend,

From the beginning to the end,

My hand I have to dip

Within my pocket—why, the knave,

The very churl who digs my grave

At last, will want a tip!

Such is my lot. I don’t complain

(And if I did ’twould be in vain).

But oh, with quivering lip

I ask of Fate, the fickle minx,

“Why is it no one ever thinks

Of giving me a tip?”

And lo! next morning in the Strand,

I met a man who gripped my hand

With fast and fervent grip.

It was my old acquaintance Jones.

Said he in confidential tones,

“Now do you want a tip?”

“Certes, ’twould be exceeding strange,

A very gratifying change,”

Said I with smiling lip.

Quoth he, you’ll take it? “Why of course,”

Quoth I, whereat he named a horse,

And that he called a “tip.”

Alas! I took it, to my cost;

Five guineas was the sum I lost,

Through Jones’s “racing snip.”

I knew that it was kindly meant,

But henceforth I am quite content.

I do not want a tip.

COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE.—Shakespeare tells us that “In the spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love,” and doubtless the bright, fresh beauty of the optimistic season favours the union of hearts. But Cupid is fairly busy all the year round, and possibly actual statistics, could they be gathered, would show that other seasons are equally fruitful in inducing the serious consideration of matrimony. The Proposal.–The proverb has it, “none but the brave deserve the fair,” and Sir Walter Raleigh said:

“He either fears his fate too much

Or his deserts are small,

Who dares not put it to the touch

To gain or lose it all.

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