Yes, there was a Hungarian baron in the automobile business, and two
English sirs. The baron was quite a decent fellow: I had a talk with him
in the smoking room one night. He didn't put on any airs at all. You
would have thought he was an ordinary man. But the sirs kept to
themselves. All they did the whole voyage was to write letters, wear
their dress suits and curse the stewards."

"They tell me over here that the best eating is on the French lines."

"Yes, so I hear. But some say, too, that the Scandinavian lines are
best, and then again I have heard people boosting the Italian lines."

"I guess each one has its points. They say that you get wine free with
meals on the French boats."

"But I hear it's fourth rate wine."

"Well, you don't have to drink it."

"That's so. But, as for me, I can't stand a Frenchman. I'd rather do
without the wine and travel with the Dutch. Paris is dead compared with
Berlin."

"So it is. But those Germans are getting to be awful sharks. The way
they charge in Berlin is enough to make you sick."

"Don't tell _me_. I have been there. No longer ago than last
Tuesday--or was it last Monday?--I went into one of those big
restaurants on the Unter den Linden and ordered a small steak, French
fried potatoes, a piece of pie and a cup of coffee--and what do you
think those thieves charged me for it? Three marks fifty! Think of it!
That's eighty-seven and a half cents. Why, a man could have got the same
meal at home for a dollar. These Germans are running wild. American
money has gone to their heads. They think every American they get hold
of is a millionaire."

"The French are worse. I went into a hotel in Paris and paid ten francs
a day for a room for myself and wife, and when we left they charged me
one franc forty a day extra for sweeping it out and making the bed!"

"That's nothing. Here in Innsbruck they charge you half a krone a day
_taxes_."

"What! You don't say!"

"Sure thing. And if you don't eat breakfast in the hotel they charge you
a krone for it anyhow."

"Well, well, what next? But, after all, you can't blame them. We
Americans come over here and hand them our pocket-books, and we ought to
be glad if we get anything back at all. The way a man has to tip is
something fearful."

"Isn't it, though! I stayed in Dresden a week, and when I left there
were six grafters lined up with their claws out. First came the
port_eer_. Then came--"

"How much did you give the port