452 THE KEEPER'S BOOK 



get, while the proprietor is the master. It is a difficult 

 thing for a man to serve two masters. Of course, as at 

 present, such tips are not obligatory in law, yet the 

 justice of them appeals more or less to all concerned. 

 The sooner the system is abolished, however, the better. 

 But we do not wish to insult our friends by placing 

 their servants in the same category as the unpaid waiter, 

 and yet the conduct of many of these servants seems 

 to be so regulated by the size of their tips that there is 

 an occasional suspicion that the establishment in which 

 they serve is run on the restaurant line. The practice 

 of indiscriminate tipping has crept into every depart- 

 ment of estate and household life, until the stable, the 

 covert, the moor, the kitchen, and the pantry have all 

 become free-flowing drains from thepocket of the guest. 

 And it is not only the guest that suffers. The abhorrent 

 practice of secret commissions, and the high-handed way 

 in which many servants demand them, have compelled 

 even trades-people to submit to this form of tyranny 

 from pure sense of self-protection, with the result that 

 the swindling is reflected back upon the master. In 

 a large number of cases the tradesman is chosen, not 

 from the quality and comparative cheapness of his goods, 

 but from the liberality of his tipping capacities. This 

 line of procedure harms the master in two ways : he 

 does not get the best value for his money, and he has 

 the price of his goods raised so as to recoup the trades- 

 man for the money he has doled out to the master's 

 servants in bribes. Let us take an example relevant 



