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A NORWEGIAN INNKEEPER.
15
the tourist finds his way unmolested to the hotel he
chooses. When he arrives, he has to wait upon the
hotel-keeper, in the hotel-keeper’s special apartment,
and request the favour of being supplied with board
and lodging. There is no obsequious greeting on the
threshold, no bowing* of waiters, or hiffgage-bearine:
* o J Go o o
enthusiasm on the part of boots, and yet there is no
ground for complaint of incivility, the reception being
characterized by calm politeness. When we waited,
hat in hand, upon our host of the Hotel du Nord, he
received us blandly in his little room. He consented
to let us have a bedroom, and even indicated the
direction in which it existed ; he referred to the fact
that a bell might be found connected with some part
of its walls, and suggested the possibility of some one
coming to wait upon us if we rang that bell.
This was evidently a little preliminary fencing of
dignity: he had probably encountered some stray
specimens of those wretched libels upon true Englishmen,—
the vulgar rich,—who give their orders, always
believing that " the waiter’s in the room;" and who are so
utterly void of true gentlemanly feeling as to believe
that lavish expenditure can justify insolence. Some of
these, common enough " up the Rhine " and at
Clia-mouni, may have found their way to Christiania; but
be that as it may, our host gave us at once to
understand that he was a gentleman and expected to be treated
accordingly, and would on such conditions reciprocate.
I was delighted to meet with such a landlord, and my
companion, the salmon-fisher, equally so. We came to
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