They are spoiled by the hurried, captious, tiresome persons who haunt
post-offices at all hours, and in self-defence they are apt to convert
themselves into moral analogues of the fretful porcupine. Perhaps the
queenly dames in railway refreshment-rooms are almost equal
to the post-office damsels; but both classes are growing more
good-natured--thanks to Charles Dickens, Mr. Sullivan, and Mr. _Punch_.
But the American servant exhibits no such weakness as civility; he is
resolved to let you know that you are in the country of equality, and,
in order to do that effectually, he treats you as a grovelling inferior.
You ask a civil question, and he flings his answer at you as he would
fling a bone at a dog. Every act of service which he performs comes most
ungraciously from him, and he usually contrives to let you plainly see
two things--first, he is ashamed of his position; secondly, he means to
take a sort of indirect revenge on you in order to salve his lacerated
dignity. A young English peer happened to ask a Chicago servant to clean
a pair of boots, and his tone of command was rather pronounced and
definite. That young patrician began to doubt his own identity when he
was thus addressed--"Ketch on and do them yourself!" There was no
redress, no possible remedy, and finally our compatriot humbled himself
to a negro, and paid an exorbitant price for his polish.
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