Germans -- Foreign countries -- Fiction; Sisters -- Fiction; Twins -- Fiction; Young women -- Fiction
Anna-Rose, not heeding him and clutching nervously the place where her
bag was, told Mr. Twist that the stewardess hadn't seemed to mind them
quite so much last night, and still less that morning, and perhaps some
little memento--something that wasn't money--
"Give her those caps of yours," said the young man, bursting into
hilarity; but indeed it wasn't his fault that he was a low young man.
Mr. Twist, shutting him out of the conversation by interposing a
shoulder, told Anna-Rose he had noticed stewardesses, and also stewards,
softened when journeys drew near their end, but that it didn't mean they
wanted mementos. They wanted money; and he would do the tipping for her
if she liked.
Anna-Rose jumped at it. This tipping of the stewardess had haunted her
at intervals throughout the journey whenever she woke up at night. She
felt that, not having yet in her life tipped anybody, it was very hard
that she couldn't begin with somebody more her own size.
"Then if you don't mind coming behind the funnel," she said, "I can give
you my £5 notes, and perhaps you would get them changed for me and
deduct what you think the stewardess ought to have."
Mr. Twist, and also Anna-Felicitas, who wasn't allowed to stay behind
with the exuberant young man though she was quite unconscious of his
presence, went with Anna-Rose behind the funnel, where after a great
deal of private fumbling, her back turned to them, she produced the two
much-crumpled £5 notes.
"The steward ought to have something too," said Mr. Twist.
"Oh, I'd be glad if you'd do him as well," said Anna-Rose eagerly. "I
don't think I _could_ offer him a tip. He has been so fatherly to us.
And imagine offering to tip one's father."
Mr. Twist laughed, and said she would get over this feeling in time. He
promised to do what was right, and to make it clear that the tips he
bestowed were Twinkler tips; and presently he came back with messages of
thanks from the tipped--such polite ones from the stewardess that the
twins were astonished--and gave Anna-Rose a packet of very dirty-looking
slices of green paper, which were dollar bills, he said, besides a
variety of strange coins which he spread out on a ledge and explained to
her.
"The exchange was favourable to you to-day," said Mr. Twist, counting
out the money.
"How nice of it," said Anna-Rose politely. "Did you keep your eye on
its variations?" she added a little loudly, with a view to rousing
respect in Anna-Felicitas who was lounging against a seat and showing a
total absence of every kind of appropriate emotion.
"Certainly," said Mr. Twist after a slight pause. "I kept both my eyes
on all of them."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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